PRESIDENT Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will sign the proposed P6.352-trillion national budget for 2025 on Dec. 30, Malacañang said on Tuesday.
“Signing on 30 December 2024 after the Rizal Day program in Manila,” acting Presidential Communications Office (PCO) Secretary Cesar Chavez told reporters in a text message.
Chavez had said earlier the President and his advisers never discussed implementing a reenacted budget.
Marcos was supposed to sign the budget measure last Dec. 20 but deferred it, saying the bill needed further review.
This was the first time Marcos took longer to enact the spending bill.
He signed the 2023 budget on Dec. 16, 2022, and that for 2024 on Dec. 20, 2023.
If Congress fails to pass the general appropriations bill for the upcoming fiscal year by the end of the current fiscal year, the general appropriations law for the previous fiscal year will remain in effect until the new bill is passed.
Marcos vowed to sign next year’s spending measure before the year ends to avoid a reenacted budget.
He said it would take a while to comb through the provisions of the budget bill because of the “many changes to the budget request of the different departments.”
Marcos said he wanted to ensure that next year’s funding “is directed at the important projects that we have prioritized” and that there are “stronger safeguards on spending for the different projects.”
Among his major concerns in the ratified bill is the P12 billion slashed from the Department of Education (DepEd) meant for its computerization program.
The President earlier said he is figuring out how to reinstate the slashed funding.
There is also the issue over the state-run insurer PhilHealth, which was given zero subsidy for next year. The Department of Health (DoH) has appealed to the President to reconsider, but it is likely the decision will stay since Marcos insisted that PhilHealth “have sufficient funds to carry on.”
“I want to be very, very sure that the budget for 2025 is directed at the important projects that we have prioritized, [that’s] number one. And secondly, that there are stronger safeguards on the spending for the different programs,” Marcos has said.
Health reform advocate Dr. Tony Leachon hopes the PhilHealth budget will be restored.
In a Viber message to The Manila Times on Tuesday, Leachon said: “I fervently hope that the President will restore the P74 billion proposed budget for PhilHealth rather than a zero subsidy.”
He said the President’s “early pronouncements on reserved funds symbolize his failure to understand the bigger picture on PhilHealth.”
Leachon said Marcos put millions of Filipinos “at risk” when he gave a zero subsidy to PhilHealth.
“I have my doubts after seeing [Health] Secretary Ted Herbosa and [Assistant Secretary] Albert Domingo scampering to do PR initiatives to defend the zero budget in contrast to [Education Secretary Sonny] Angara, who decried the P12 billion cut in the budget which [Marcos] responded with positivity,” he said.
“I’m hoping [Marcos] will take the opportunity to redeem himself after his trust ratings started to fall miserably anchored on the dismal performance on health matters,” he said.
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