The Marcos administration should prepare for legal challenges that may arise from the signing into law of the 2025 General Appropriations Bill (GAB).
Wall Street indices initially fell following monthly consumer price index data, which kept the Federal Reserve on track to cut interest rates but weakened the case for a larger reduction.
This, as the last-minute tweaks by President Marcos may not be enough to correct supposed flaws in the budget for next year, former Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson said on Monday.
In a Viber message to the Inquirer, Lacson noted that the President vetoed only P26 billion of the supposed P288 billion in “congressional insertions” under the proposed funding for the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).
Article continues after this advertisement“Having vetoed only P26.065B from the P288B ‘congressional insertions,’ mostly in the bicameral conference, the DepEd (Department of Education) budget is still not ‘assigned the highest budgetary priority’ contrary to Article XIV Sec 5(5) of the 1987 Constitution,” he said.
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“That being said, Malacañang may already be preparing for any constitutional challenge that may arise from this—both before the Supreme Court and the court of public opinion,” Lacson added.
Article continues after this advertisementThe former senator, who is running under the senatorial slate of the administration in the May 2025 elections, issued the statement moments after President Marcos signed the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA). (See related story on this page.)
murka slotsArticle continues after this advertisementIn his speech during the signing ceremony, Mr. Marcos disclosed that he vetoed P194-billion worth of items in the 2025 GAB, which had been criticized due to the alleged fund insertions even after its passage in both Houses of Congress.
Article continues after this advertisementSenate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III also found the President’s veto of certain items in the budget wanting.
“I was hoping for more reduction in programmed appropriations in order to give education the highest budgetary priority and even greater reduction in the unprogrammed appropriations,” he said.
Article continues after this advertisementAt a press briefing, however, Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin expressed confidence that the approved GAA would surmount any legal challenge.
“I am confident that we worked very hard on this and that our efforts will be validated by any kind of lack of challenge. So, we are not going to encourage the challenge,” he said.
But the government cannot stop critics from questioning the legality of the newly signed spending measure, even before the Supreme Court, Bersamin said.
“To those alleging that our budget is an unconstitutional budget, I want to tell all of you that there will never be such an opportunity for the budget to be unconstitutional. This is the interplay between the Congress and the executive branch,” he said.
Senate President Francis Escudero, for his part, described the GAA as “a product of a truly collaborative process involving the inputs of various sectors, including the public.”
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“Our work [in government] is not to blindly ratify proposalsoogbet, but to review them rigorously, and if need be recalibrate the budget to align with the needs of the people. Not to do so amounts to a betrayal of public trust,” Escudero said. INQ
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