Marcos signs P6.326-trillion 2025 national budget, vetoes P194 billion
President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. signed the 2025 national budget worth P6.326 trillion on Dec. 30, two days before 2024 ends.
The 2025 national budget was lower than the P6.352 trillion initially submitted to Congress as Marcos directly vetoed over P194 billion worth of line items that, he said, are "inconsistent with the administration's priority programs."
The vetoed items include projects under the Department of Public Works and Highways worth P26.065 billion and "unprogrammed appropriations" worth P168.240 billion.
“We take our role as stewards of our taxpayers’ money seriously," Marcos said in his speech. "And for this reason. after an exhaustive and thorough review, we have directly vetoed over P194 billion worth of line items that are not consistent with our priorities."
The president said there will be “conditional implementation of certain items” to ensure they are implemented “under the stated and authorized purpose.”
He added that they were “compelled to subject the implementation of the Ayuda sa Kapos ng Kita Program or AKAP to the convergence program of the [Department of Social Welfare and Development, Department of Labor and Employment, and National Economic Development Authority]."
“We ensure that its implementation," he said, "will be strategic leading to the long-term improvement of the lives of qualified beneficiaries, while guarding against misuse, and duplication, and fragmented benefits."
“This approach is anchored on a simple yet profound truth: the appropriation of public funds must not break the public trust,” he added.
The 2025 budget was also meant to be signed on Dec. 20, but Marcos moved it to Dec. 30 after several groups demanded “corrective measures” in the version submitted by Congress.
Several groups called out realignments in the 2025 budget, with its final version only being discussed by the Senate Committee on Finance and the House Committee on Appropriations chairpersons when the bicameral conference was convened.
In particular, members of Congress raised concerns over AKAP and its supposed P26 billion funding—even as the Department of Education got a budget cut and the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) received zero subsidy in the 2025 budget.
Article XIV Section 5(5) of the 1987 Constitution states that the State "shall assign the highest budgetary priority to education and ensure that teaching will attract and retain its rightful share of the best available talents through adequate remuneration and other means of job satisfaction and fulfillment."
For PhilHealth, the Senate cited its unused funds worth P600 billion as the reason for the zero subsidy, with Sen. Grace Poe, the national budget's sponsor in the upper chamber, saying the insurer should exhaust these funds first.
PhilHealth President and Chief Executive Officer Emmanuel Ledesma Jr. assured members, who pay hundreds of pesos in monthly premiums, that they would continue to receive benefits for their medical needs.
Marcos has said that priority measures would be funded in 2025, and his economic team reworked the budget to have “stronger safeguards on spending for the different projects.”
