House minority: We were kept in the dark on 2025 budget
MANILA, Philippines — The House minority bloc said it was largely kept in the dark on key provisions of the 2025 national budget, as fresh details surfaced in the Senate about what lawmakers described as the most opaque budget process in years.
Minority Leader Marcelino Libanan said on Tuesday, November 18, that despite the minority leader’s membership in all committees, the bicameral conference deliberations that finalized the 2025 General Appropriations Act were confined to former appropriations panel chair Zaldy Co and his Senate counterpart at the time, former senator Grace Poe.
“We don’t know that,” Libanan said. “If we look at what usually happens, that’s what happened.”
Deputy Minority Leader Leila de Lima called for “clarity and sobriety amid all the smoke, mirrors and spectacle,” as multiple lawmakers urged a full investigation into how alleged insertions were handled without wider congressional oversight.
The statements came as the Senate opened new discussions on the alleged P100-billion bicameral insertions detailed by Co.
Senate President Pro Tempore Panfilo Lacson and finance committee chair Sherwin Gatchalian said they independently verified that the P100 billion was indeed inserted during the bicam, though Lacson rejected Co’s allegation that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered the additions in exchange for a commission.
Lacson said the clarification came from former public works undersecretary Roberto Bernardo, who confessed to handling kickback distribution and told the senator that Marcos had been name-dropped by two officials—Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin and Department of Education undersecretary Trygve Olaivar—to justify the insertions.
Lacson said Bernardo provided a detailed breakdown, including claims that around P81 billion of the inserted funds went to the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), and that billions in alleged cash deliveries were made to various officials.
The Makabayan bloc, however, said Lacson’s exoneration of Marcos was premature, as they urged Congress to summon Bernardo and require sworn testimony on the role of Malacañang-linked personalities in what lawmakers have described as a “new pork barrel” system. — Based on reports from The STAR
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