Opposition lawmakers in the House of Representatives have joined Senate President Vicente Sotto III in calling for the removal of unprogrammed funds from the proposed P 6.793 trillion national budget for 2026 in order to prevent the further abuse of public funds.
This was the stand of House Deputy Minority Leaders and ML party-list Rep. Leila de Lima and Akbayan Party-list Rep. Percival Cendaña on unprogrammed appropriations in next year’s spending plan.
“I have the same position as Senator Sotto because we have seen in the 2023, 2024 and 2025 budget, it has been a source of abuse. So if we could, we should remove it. Otherwise, we must be very restrictive about it and limit it to certain items,” de Lima told reporters.
“But the best case here really is to have it zero. Because if we really have to [spend an additional budget], then we can pass a supplemental budget,” she added.
Cendaña pointed out that important projects would not be relegated to unprogrammed appropriations if these were indeed urgent priorities.
“If the projects under the unprogrammed funds are indeed important, then they shouldn’t be unprogrammed in the first place. As it is in life, when it is important for you, it is part of your regular programming,” he said.
Cendaña added: “If the unprogrammed appropriations stays, then it might cast a shadow on our efforts to cleanse the stain of corruption from our national budget. We hope that Speaker Faustino Dy will ensure its removal to show the House is committed to rebuilding public trust.”
On Monday, Sotto said he and Senator Sherwin Gatchalian would push for the scrapping of all unprogrammed funds in future budget deliberations. Sotto said only foreign-assisted projects will be exempt from their proposal.
Unprogrammed appropriations are funded only on certain conditions such as when the government’s revenue collection exceeds its targets, meaning there are excess funds; or when additional grants or loans from foreign or domestic sources are secured.
Previous congressional hearings have revealed that questionable flood control projects worth at least P600 million are funded by unprogrammed appropriations under the 2023 national budget.
During the plenary deliberations of the proposed national budget for 2026, Cendaña questioned the unprogrammed funds for next year since 70% of these are allocated to infrastructure projects, including flood control projects which are now under heavy scrutiny following revelations of kickbacks and corruption in government projects.
House appropriations panel and Nueva Ecija Representative Mikaela Suansing also revealed that the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) released P141 billion for flood control projects in 2023 and 2024 from unprogrammed appropriations. — JMA, GMA Integrated News
