December 10, 2024 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — The Marcos administration is expecting the proposed P6.352-trillion national budget for 2025 to be signed before Christmas.
Presidential Legislative Liaison Office chief Mark Llandro Mendoza said the spending bill is one of four measures that the administration hopes would be signed by yearend.
“Perhaps before Christmas,” Mendoza said in a chance interview yesterday at Malacañang.
He did not say what other measures may be enacted this year, although he noted that some of the bills are in the bicameral conference committee stage while others are being tackled at the Senate plenary.
A bicameral conference committee, composed of eight members of the Senate and 16 members of the House of Representatives, is reconciling the conflicting provisions of the House and Senate versions of the bill.
In September, President Marcos expressed hope that the 2025 budget would be enacted before Christmas.
“I commend both houses of the 19th Congress for their display of unity in collaborating and pushing our key priority bills forward. I am counting on your continued support in passing the 2025 national budget with our agenda for prosperity in mind, before Christmas,” Marcos said in a recent Facebook post.
The President has certified the spending bill as urgent, exempting it from the rule that a measure can only be approved on final reading three days after it was passed on second reading.
Marcos convened the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council yesterday at Malacañang, but the Presidential Communications Office has yet to release details of the meeting.
Budget deliberations open to public
Lawmakers have agreed to open to the public the deliberation of the proposed P6.352-trillion national budget for 2025, including the controversial budget of the Ayuda sa Kapos ang Kita Program (AKAP), Sen. Grace Poe said yesterday.
Instead of yesterday or today, Poe said the bicam would meet tomorrow at the Maynila Ballroom of the Manila Hotel.
“Our colleagues are welcome to ask (questions) in the open,” she said in a Viber message.
Poe, chairperson of the Senate committee on finance, said the technical working group has yet to complete its task to reconcile the disagreeing provisions of the national budget passed by the Senate and the House.
The TWG was created by the committee on Nov. 28 to harmonize the conflicting provisions of House Bill 10800, or the 2025 General Appropriations Bill.
Among the controversial provisions of the proposed budget for 2025 are the P1.3-billion cut in the allocation for the Office of the Vice President and AKAP. — Cecille Suerte Felipe
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