Romualdez urged to return 2026 budget to DBM, stop hearings over ‘erroneous’ entries

MANILA, Philippines — House party leaders recommended to House Speaker Martin Romualdez on Wednesday, September 3, the return of the 2026 National Expenditure Program (NEP) to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and temporarily stop budget hearings until the reported "erroneous entries" are fixed. 

This comes after President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. ordered the DBM and the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to conduct a “sweeping review” of the DPWH budget.

Marcos' move also follows the Senate's findings of duplicated flood control projects, vague insertions with identical funding, projects without station numbers, rounded-off costs and items that reappeared in the 2026 proposed budget after already being listed in the 2025 national budget.

After a lengthy meeting of House party leaders, Deputy Speaker Ronaldo Puno said the 2026 NEP must be returned following reports that some district budgets were "mangled." He mentioned revelations of "missing entries, double appropriations and oversized lumpsum allocations." 

Puno said there has been discomfort from many party members after they saw their district's respective proposed budgets. 

"It appears to be a common experience rather than a rare experience," he added. 

Puno explained that most of their party members do not know how to deal with the mistakes found in the P6.73-trillion proposed budget for 2026. "We have to practically redo the entire submission to us and we do not want to be suspected of any untoward action," he added.

The political parties who agreed to recommend the return of the 2026 NEP include the National Unity Party, Lakas-CMD, Nacionalista Party and Nationalist People's Coalition.

The party leaders also said they refuse to be accused of any wrong amendments if the proposed budget transmitted to Congress is filled with errors. 

"So, we are recommending to the speaker that we return the 2026 NEP to the DBM, and we are asking our members now to refrain from any further participation in any other budget hearings until this matter is resolved," Puno said. 

He warned that the lower chamber is already confronting “too much distrust,” with ongoing investigations raising questions of lawmakers’ connections to contractors in alleged flood control anomalies.

According to Puno, the House legal counsel said that the lower chamber may return the proposed budget so the DBM can correct it before the House begins deliberations, as there are no laws preventing them from undertaking such action.

"They should settle their dispute first, come up with the correct budget formulations before they send it to us, so we can reasonably proceed," Puno said. 

Should the House return the 2026 NEP to the DBM, Congress will most likely have a tighter schedule to scrutinize the proposed budget for each agency, programs and projects of the government. 

Congress is currently holding budget briefings with each agency to review their priorities alongside the executive branch’s proposal. With Congress scheduled to break from October 4 to November 9, the time available for budget deliberations will be further reduced.

House Deputy Speaker Janette Garin suggested canceling the break just to ensure that the 2026 national budget is passed before the year ends.   

"Pwede i-cancel ang break. We have a one-month break. We can forego of that para sa bayan. Mas masakit yung pipilitin natin ang isang budget himayin kasi ngayon, ang nangyayari, we cannot totally exercise our oversight powers kasi sa DPWH, andaming singit," she said. 

(We can cancel the break. We have a one-month break, but we can forego it for the sake of the country. It’s more painful to be forced to dissect a budget now, because at this point, we cannot fully exercise our oversight powers because the DPWH has made so many insertions.)

"At yung singit na 'to walang umaamin kanino nanggaling. Coded pa. Malalaman mo doon sa amount pare-pareho," Garin added, stressing that no mayor, congressman and governor are owning up to any lapses.  

(And these insertions have no one admitting where they came from. They’re even coded. You can only tell by noticing that the amounts are the same.)

Puno said Romualdez has been informed of the party leaders' recommendation and hopes to get the speaker's response in the coming days, especially with the DPWH budget briefing scheduled for September 5. 

House appropriations chair Rep. Mika Suansing (Nueva Ecija, 1st District) has also been notified of the recommendation, the deputy speaker added.

Marcos warned Congress in his fourth address to the nation that he would not sign any budget that does not align with the NEP. However, the NEP right now reportedly contains questionable line items. 

Should Congress ratify such a budget, Marcos said he is not afraid of allowing the government to operate on a reenacted budget, which means the previous enacted budget will remain in effect and agencies will have to operate on the same budget.