OVP 2026 budget ‘feasible’ sans confidential funds — Win Gatchalian

The proposed budget of the Office of the Vice President for fiscal year 2026 is “feasible” as long as it has no confidential funds, Senate finance committee chairman Sherwin Gatchalian said Monday.

At a press conference, Gatchalian said that he will be “very strict” when it comes to the proposed confidential and intelligence funds under the 2026 national budget, stressing that it “will no longer be free for all” and will only be limited to enforcement and intelligence agencies. 

“From what I have seen, ‘yung pinaka-contentious do’n ang confidential funds di ba? And for the 2025 budget wala na ‘yun. In fact, bare bones na ang OVP budget, ‘yung mga talagang kailangan nila sa kanilang operations and some projects ni Vice President,” the senator said. 

(From what I have seen, the confidential funds are the most contentious, right? And for the 2025 budget, the OVP no longer has that. In fact, the OVP budget is bare bones, and they only have a budget for their operations and some projects of the Vice President.) 

“So, as long as wala na ang contentious items doon, which is the confidential funds, feasible naman ang budget ngayon ng OVP,” he added. 

(So, as long as the contentious items are gone, which is the confidential funds, the OVP budget is now feasible.) 

The proposed 2026 budget of the OVP, under the leadership of Vice President Sara Duterte, has increased by P170 million from the current fiscal year—-from P733 million to P903 million, according to spokesperson Ruth Castelo. 

Castelo also confirmed that the OVP will not be requesting any confidential funds for next year. 

“No confidential funds. Hindi naman na tayo nag-request niyan [we didn’t request]… If they want to give, they want to give,” she explained. 

Last year, the House decided to reduce the budget of the OVP from the originally proposed P2 billion to P733 million amid Duterte’s refusal to answer lawmakers’ questions on OVP budget use, including confidential funds.

The Senate retained the House-introduced budget cut despite calls from Duterte's allies to restore some of the OVP's proposed funding for social services.

‘Golden age of transparency’

Further, Gatchalian said that amid the public clamor for transparency and accountability, he will push to make more budget documents—-from the National Expenditure Program until it becomes the General Appropriations Act—-available online for the public to easily access it. 

“Kung ikaw ay publiko at gusto mo i-analyze ang budget, makikita mo lang ang step 1 at ‘yung last step. Pero hindi ko makikita 'yung i-step by i-step…dahil kulang kulang ‘yung paga-upload ng documents,” he said. 

(If you want to analyze the budget, you can only see step 1 and the last step. But you can't see it step by step because not all documents are being uploaded.) 

“So, ire-require namin ngayon ang DBM to go one step further. Meron silang tinatawag na budget preparation form 201. Lahat ng mga requests ng mga ahensya binibigay sa DBM. Ire-request namin ngayon na i-upload rin sa website para malaman ng taumbayan kung ano ba ang nire-request ng mga agencies,” he added. 

(So, we will now require DBM to go one step further. They have a budget preparation form 201 which contains the budget requests of all agencies. We will now request for it to be uploaded to the website so that the people will know how much the agencies are requesting us.) 

Transparency and accountability. Isinusulong natin na i-upload online ang lahat ng dokumento pagdating sa 2026 national budget. pic.twitter.com/zt99adMnjt

— Win Gatchalian (@WinGatchalian74) August 4, 2025

The chairman of the Senate committee on finance also said that they will request the House of Representatives to upload their version of the General Appropriations Bill (GAB) on their website and send a digital format to the Senate.

He said the Senate will also do the same for its own version of the bill. The reconciled version by both chambers will likewise be uploaded online so that the public can scrutinize the changes in the budget before it gets delivered to Malacañang for the President’s signature. —AOL, GMA Integrated News