Erwin Tulfo: 2026 budget will not be used for Sara Duterte impeachment

Senator Erwin Tulfo on Thursday said he does not see that the 2026 national budget will be used to fund a renewed impeachment bid against Vice President Sara Duterte. 

Tulfo, vice chairman of the Senate finance committee, said this in response to the claim of Senator Imee Marcos that the 2026 budget was chopped into pieces to push again for the impeachment of Duterte. 

“That’s her opinion. Pero kung sa akin, wala naman akong nakikita na ganon (as for me, I don’t see anything like that), so I don’t think so,” the neophyte senator said during the Kapihan sa Senado forum 

“Ako as Vice Chair, wala akong nakita na pondo para gamitin (as Vice Chair, I didn’t see any funds that could be used) to operate against the Vice President for her impeachment,” he added.

Senator Marcos had alleged that the 2026 General Appropriations Act (GAA), which was recently signed by her brother, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., is not a developmental budget but a “political” budget.

According to her, a fresh impeachment complaint may be filed against the Vice President in February, in time for the end of the constitutionally mandated one-year ban on such complaints. 

Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, chairman of the Senate committee on finance, had said that the impeachment bid against Duterte was not discussed during the deliberations on the 2026 national budget. 

Unprogrammed funds

Tulfo also disclosed that he signed the 2026 budget bicameral conference committee “with a heavy heart” because of the restoration of the contentious unprogrammed appropriations. 

“Bago lang ako dito pero bakit mo lalagyan ‘yung mga ganyan sa unprogrammed na sinasabi ‘pag nagka-pondo? Eh lagi ngang wala tayong pondo. Lagi ngang deficit tayo eh, hindi natin nami-meet ‘yung target. That’s the problem,” he explained. 

Thus, the younger Tulfo vowed to push for “zero” unprogrammed funds for the 2027 national budget, except if it will be used for the funding of the foreign-assisted projects. 

Financial aid

Erwin Tulfo, a former secretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), also backed the barring of politicians from distribution of cash and other forms of financial assistance.

He said that he will incorporate a provision for such in the Senate Bill No. 1445, which he filed in October last year, seeking to institutionalize DSWD’s Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situation (AICS). 

“Dapat talaga. Hindi lang ‘yung ganito na removal of politicians sa distribution of aid… para matigil na ‘yan na talagang walang pulitiko at diretso na (ang pamimigay ng ayuda),” he said. 

(There should be a specific law for this, not just to simply say that politicians are barred from the distribution of aid… This should be stopped so that politicians will no longer be involved in the distribution.) 

President Marcos earlier said the government will “strictly implement” the provision in the 2026 national budget that bars politicians from distributing cash and other forms of financial assistance.

An "anti-epal" special provision was supposedly included in the 2026 GAA, which states that all cash assistance and other forms of financial aid shall be distributed exclusively by authorized government officers and personnel or accredited partners only. 

READ: What is the ‘Anti-Epal’ provision in the 2026 national budget bill?

—AOL, GMA Integrated News