The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) on Monday said only agencies that need confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) will be given such resources under the proposed national budget for the coming year.
According to DBM principal economist Joselito Basilio, the CIF allocation for 2025 will be similar to what was allocated in this year’s national budget under the General Appropriations Act (GAA), in respect to Congress.
“It would be something similar to what happened in the GAA. Only those agencies that should have it will have it as per the GAA 2024 that was applied in Congress,” he said during the EJAP-SMC Economic Forum in Manila City.
To recall, a number of government agencies proposed to have CIFs for this year, but a number of them were either dropped by the departments themselves, or by Congress during the budget deliberations.
Basilio did not provide specific details on the CIF for 2025, as he said the proposed budget is on track to be submitted to Congress by the end of July, with the details now being fine tuned as the department received P9.3-trillion worth of budget proposals from government agencies.
This compares with the P6.532-trillion budget set by the inter-agency Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) for 2025, equivalent to 22% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).
“We’re still finalizing some minute details, so that’s generally the difference between what was proposed and what was submitted,” Basilio said.
“Some agencies received more relative to what their GAA (General Appropriations Act) was, and some of them, depending on the agency, project readiness, absorptive capacity, agencies that received less than their NEP (National Expenditure Program) for 2025,” he added.
Among the agencies that are expected to have a decline in their budget compared to their proposal is the Department of Health (DOH), given the reduction in funds which covered COVID-19-related expenses previously.
“The figures are not yet final so the agencies are still on talks, but if DOH will receive less budget, that’s because of some of the COVID-related expenses we had that we are trying to remove now,” Basilio said. — RSJ, GMA Integrated News
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