House holds off move to return P6.7-T budget to DBM

The House of Representatives has put on hold plans to return the proposed P6.7 trillion budget to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) over erroneous items, House spokesperson and lawyer Princess Abante said.

Abante, in a press conference, said party leaders met with Speaker and Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez last night and at least two House leaders, Reps. Ronaldo Puno of Antipolo and Jose Alvarez of Palawan, agreed to not yet push through with the move provided that the DBM and the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) own up to the erroneous entries.

“Based on the interviews they (Puno and Alvarez) made, there are statements saying so,” Abante said in a press conference.

“But I don’t know if we can already say it will be returned or not kasi dalawa pa lang [among House leaders] ang narinig ko na nagsabi. Still, their position on the issues they raised, that it should be the DBM making the corrections, not Congress, did not change,” Abante added.

(Only two House leaders have said that they won’t recommend the return of the proposed budget anymore.) 

Puno earlier flagged the 2026 budget for the zero allocations for multi-year programs as well as provisions allocating budget to government projects that are already finished.

In a Super Radyo dzBB interview, Puno, however, said Romualdez was able to convince lawmakers to instead point out erroneous entries in the budget briefing on the DPWH, which is held before the House appropriations panel on Friday, September 5.

“We recommended the return of the entire budget but the Speaker said that there are agencies which did not contain erroneous entries such as the Comelec and the Department of Social Welfare and Development. He told us it would be better not to return the entire budget,” Puno said.

“He told us instead of returning everything, we can just point it out to the DPWH per district [during the budget briefing]. That would take two days, but you [should] point out every single problem that every single district has. We agreed,” he added.

President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos, Jr. has ordered DBM and DPWH to conduct a "sweeping review" of the proposed 2026 budget to cleanse it of unmeritorious provisions. —VAL, GMA Integrated News