Marcos to sign P6.3T budget on Rizal Day
MANILA, Philippines — The Presidential Communications Office (PCO) announced Tuesday that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will sign the P6.352-trillion national budget for 2025 on Rizal Day, December 30.
The Palace had previously kept quiet about the signing date, though Marcos had assured the public he would approve the budget before year's end.
"Signing on 30 December 2024 after the Rizal Day events," Presidential Communications Secretary Cesar Chavez confirmed in a statement to media.
The president's sister, Sen. Imee Marcos, separately confirmed the December 30 signing date to reporters.
This marks the latest calendar date that Marcos has chosen to sign a national budget during his presidency.
For comparison, he signed the 2023 budget on December 16, 2022, and the 2024 budget on December 20, 2023.
Slight delay. The signing was delayed after the bicameral-approved budget drew public criticisms.
Malacañang has since indicated it would veto certain provisions.
Contentions. One major point of contention emerged when Congress' eliminated the subsidy for state health insurer PhilHealth. The bicameral conference committee justified this by citing PhilHealth's reserve funds, estimated at around P500 billion.
Marcos, however, appears unlikely to reverse the PhilHealth funding cut, agreeing with Congress's position.
"The subsidy remains unused in PhilHealth's accounts. We could redirect those funds to other pressing needs — that's the simple explanation," Marcos said in Filipino on December 16.
The president, however, has shown more openness to revising the Department of Education's (DepEd) budget allocation.
DepEd is facing a P12-billion budget cut, with its computerization program alone losing P10 billion in funding.
Another contentious issue was the sudden addition of the Ayuda para sa Kapos ang Kita Program (AKAP), which critics have denounced as a form of congressional pork barrel.
While the Senate initially removed AKAP in favor of merging it with the DSWD's existing Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situation program, the bicameral committee surprisingly restored AKAP in the final version.
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