No questions asked: Senate OKs Office of the President’s budget in under 10 minutes
MANILA, Philippines — The Office of the President’s (OP) proposed budget for 2025 breezed through the Senate seamlessly on Monday, September 23.
Excluding the Senate’s roll call, the entire discussion of the OP's budget lasted less than 10 minutes, from Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin’s opening remarks to Sen. Grace Poe’s suspension of the hearing
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s office is asking for P10,506,201,000 (P10.506 bllion) in the 2025 National Expenditure Program. This was a 1.92% increase from 2024's P10.707-billion allocation for the presidential office.
“We trust in the transparent and accountable stewardship of public funds by the Office of the President. In the spirit of extending parliamentary courtesy to the head of a co-equal branch of the government, I move that we terminate the briefing on the proposed 2025 budget of the Office of the President and that it be deemed submitted to plenary,” Estrada said during the hearing.
No questions were raised.
Sen. Nancy Binay seconded the motion, and Poe, who chairs the Committee on Finance, deemed the budget submitted to plenary.
Before suspending the budget hearing, Poe noted the OP's achievements, such as the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Commission’s contribution to crack down on illegal offshore gaming, and the creation of the Presidential Office for Child Protection.
The tale of two budgets
The OP’s budget proceedings are a far cry from the Office of the Vice President’s (OVP).
“The president values the cooperation between our branches, in the fulfillment of our common goal of development. Thus the Office of the President will fully cooperate with Congress in its exercise of its constitutional mandate as the keeper of the purse,” Bersamin said.
While Bersamin did not make any references to a specific person or office, the statement seems to allude to the budget troubles of another high-ranking office.
While the OP’s hearing lasted around 10 minutes, Vice President Sara Dutertre spent more than an hour at the Senate discussing her budget with legislators, which included a now viral exchange with opposition Sen. Risa Hontiveros.
Hontiveros had questioned Duterte over a P10 million line item for the latter’s children’s book, “Isang Kaibigan (A friend)”, to which an irate Duterte claimed that senators were politicking her office’s budget.
Duterte also had a heated exchange about her office's budget at the House of Representatives.
The OVP ditched the House’s second budget hearing for her office altogether, without even sending a single representative. The House panel deliberating her budget has opted to slash the OVP’s budget and realign funds to the Department of Social Welfare and Development and the Department of Health.
In the past two years, the OVP had the same parliamentary courtesy as the OP. This is the first year that Duterte was not extended the courtesy in both chambers of Congress.
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