Marcos to ensure 2025 budget items ‘conform to Constitution’: Palace

By Ruth Abbey Gita-Carlos, Philippine News Agency

BUDGET REVIEW. President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. meets with Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, Finance Secretary Ralph Recto, Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan and Public Works Secretary Manuel Bonoan to review the proposed 2025 national budget on Dec. 23, 2024. The ongoing review aims to ensure the proposed budget is aligned with key development priorities. (PCO Photo)

MANILA – President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. would ensure the constitutionality of the proposed 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA), Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin said Thursday.

In a statement, Bersamin said an exhaustive review of the spending plan for next year remains underway to address the allegedly unconstitutional items in the budget bill.

“The President and the Cabinet are right now (with or without the calls) thoroughly reviewing the various items of the GAA to make them conform to the Constitution, and to see to it that the budget prioritizes the main legacy thrusts of the administration,” Bersamin said.

His statement came amid calls to remove the unconstitutional allocations included in the 2025 General Appropriations Bill (GAB) ahead of its scheduled signing on Dec. 30.

Bersamin assured the public that Marcos “has been most prudent in programming and spending our limited fiscal resources.”

On Wednesday, Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri renewed the call for Marcos to look into the contentious provisions of the 2025 GAB.

Zubiri hoped that the concerns for the Department of Education’s computerization, the possible unconstitutionality of the education sector no longer being the priority of the budget allocation, and the zero funding for the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) would be addressed.

Marcos was supposed to sign the 2025 GAB into law on Dec.

20.

However, a “rigorous and exhaustive” review of the budget bill prompted the delay in the signing.

Once enacted into law, the 2025 GAB will be known as the 2025 GAA.

Marcos earlier said he wanted to be “very sure” that the budget allocations for next year would be directed to “important” and “priority” projects.