Marcos to sign 2026 national budget today

MANILA, Philippines — President Marcos will sign today the 2026 General Appropriations Act (GAA) after conducting a thorough review of the Congress-approved P6.793-trillion national budget, which critics say has several questionable items.

“Yes, signing tomorrow,” Presidential Communications Secretary Dave Gomez told reporters yesterday.

Asked whether the President will veto certain items in the proposed 2026 GAA, Gomez urged the media to wait for the Chief Executive’s budget message.

Palace officials had said the President spent the holidays working to oversee a review “with a fine-tooth comb” of the 2026 outlay before signing it into law.

Budget watchdog Social Watch Philippines (SWP) earlier urged Marcos to veto P319.04 billion worth of “highly questionable items” from the spending bill.

Among the questionable programs that should be vetoed by Marcos, according to SWP, are the P81.94 billion increase in the Basic Infrastructure Program and the Sustainable Infrastructure Projects Alleviating Gaps program under the Convergence and Special Support Program of the Department of Public Works and Highways; the P8.9 billion farm-to-market roads of the Department of Agriculture; and the P5.25 billion confidential funds of various agencies.

The Roundtable for Inclusive Development (RFID), a coalition of former Cabinet officials, private sector representatives and Church leaders, have also asked the President to reject P243 billion in unprogrammed appropriations in the bicameral version of the budget bill.

Unprogrammed appropriations do not have definite funding sources.

The coalition said the bicameral version of the budget contains “more than P633 billion worth of projects at risk of corruption and patronage,” which they classified as “hard pork,” “soft pork” and “shadow pork.”

House senior deputy minority leader and Caloocan Rep. Edgar Erice has said he would challenge the constitutionality of the unprogrammed funds in the 2026 national budget before the Supreme Court if the President does not veto over P200 billion of such funds.

The administration started 2026 under a reenacted budget as the President did not sign the fresh spending bill into law last December.

Executive Secretary Ralph Recto had said the administration would ensure the2026 GAA would satisfy not only the legal and technical requirements but, more importantly, the needs of the Filipino people.

In his fourth State of the Nation Address in July last year, Marcos warned that he would veto the proposed 2026 national budget if it fails to fully align with the government’s National Expenditure Program, the version of the budget submitted by the executive to Congress.

In 2024, Marcos vetoed P194 billion worth of items in the 2025 appropriations, removing 180 public works projects and 15 unprogrammed appropriations. Critics described it as a token veto.