Senate vows to strictly guard 2027 GAA

MANILA, Philippines — Following a landmark Supreme Court decision declaring the 2024, 2025 and parts of the 2026 national budgets unconstitutional, Senate leaders vowed yesterday to strictly guard the proposed 2027 outlay against irregular realignments.

Finance committee chair Sen. JV Ejercito assured the public that the Senate would draw lessons from the SC’s ruling and thoroughly study its implications for the preparation and approval of next year’s budget.

“Let me assure the Filipino people: what transpired in past budget deliberations will not happen under my watch in the proposed 2027 national budget,” Ejercito said in a statement.

He maintained that even during the 2026 budget deliberations, lawmakers had already “exercised restraint and agreed not to increase unprogrammed appropriations beyond the amount proposed in the National Expenditure Program (NEP).”

In a 121-page decision made public on Tuesday, the SC ruled that Congress committed grave abuse of discretion by inflating the executive branch’s recommended budget for unprogrammed funds from P281.9 billion in the NEP to P731.4 billion in the enacted 2024 budget.

The court emphasized that Congress is constitutionally prohibited from increasing the President’s total recommended appropriations.

For Sen. Panfilo Lacson, the public should brace for “iyakan” among members of the House of Representatives, as the Senate intends to restore “hundreds of billions” of pesos in cuts and realignments made by the lower chamber, particularly concerning foreign-assisted projects and flood control funding.

“One good thing about the Supreme Court ruling is its timing. It couldn’t have come at a better time when the House version of the 2027 General Appropriations Bill is undergoing scrutiny by the Senate,” he said.

Worst budgets

Lacson, who noted he was not part of the Senate when the assailed budgets were passed, said the past two outlays would go down in history as the worst budgets ever passed by Congress after the 2013 GAA which was marked by the pork barrel scandal.

Senate President Pro Tempore Vicente Sotto III, who also was not a senator during the crafting of the 2024 and 2025 budgets, voiced his commitment to an open process, promising to maintain the live-streamed committee deliberations implemented during the 2026 budget cycle.

Addressing rumors of fresh budget insertions, Sotto said the Senate would rely on the SC’s parameters to block any unconstitutional moves.

Asked about the possible effects of the SC decision on the assailed budgets, he said: “As far as I know, the possible consequences are – those that remain unspent may not be disbursed anymore; those already spent may not be invalidated.”

Limited impact

Public finance expert Zy-za Suzara welcomed the ruling but said it would have limited immediate impact on the proposed P7.2-trillion 2027 national budget.

“However, Congress needs to comply with the conditions imposed by the SC in passing the UA. They cannot increase the level of the UA,” she told The STAR.

Although the ruling did not abolish UA, Suzara said it would help prevent corrupt lawmakers from using the standby funds to create fiscal space and channel them to hundreds of billions of pork.

Former finance undersecretary Cielo Magno said the ruling “should serve as a guide to the present and future Congresses to abide by constitutional standards when crafting a budget.”

She added that the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) should stop releases of the affected funds “out of courtesy.”

In a statement, the DBM said it is in coordination with the Office of the Solicitor General and other concerned executive offices to assess the ruling’s legal, fiscal, technical and operational implications before determining its next steps.

DA budget

Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr., meanwhile, appealed to the Senate committee on finance to support his department’s proposed P198.4-billion budget for 2027, saying farmers and fisherfolk are facing a “perfect storm” of climate threats, rising production costs and geopolitical shocks.

While the Department of Agriculture cannot control the weather or global oil prices, Tiu Laurel said it can strengthen farmers’ and fisherfolk’s capacity to withstand their effects. He told the committee a worst-case scenario could impact as many as 4.6 million of the 10.4 million Filipinos engaged in agriculture.

Another flood control scam?

Also at the hearing, the People’s Budget Coalition warned of a potential second “flood control scandal,” flagging nearly P190 billion in agricultural infrastructure insertions made by the House, including multimillion-peso farm-to-market roads with coordinates placing them in the middle of the ocean.

The group represented by co-convenor Kenneth Abante revealed discrepancies in 7,054 DA projects inserted by the lower chamber into the proposed 2027 budget.

Abante presented coordinates from the House version of the budget showing a P23-million farm-to-market road meant for Nueva Ecija but turned up in the ocean near the Philippine (former Benham) Rise, based on coordinates.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development, meanwhile, is appealing to the Senate to restore and augment the department’s budget for its Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situations (AICS) program amid the looming super El Niño phenomenon.

During yesterday’s hearing on DSWD’s budget, senators questioned why the AICS allocation in the 2027 NEP dropped to P33.3 billion from this year’s P63 billion.

Sen. Erwin Tulfo expressed surprise over the cut since President Marcos was supposed to have positioned the DSWD as frontline agency.

Social Welfare Secretary Rex Gatchalian defended the program, noting its contribution to immediate relief of distressed sectors. “The transport sector alone got close to P1 billion in one month. That’s the lifeline, hence the quick response,” Gatchalian said. - Josiah Antonio, Aubrey Rose Inosante