Fireworks on 2025 GAA begin

After much hullaballoo, the controversial 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA) was signed into law at Malacañang Palace last Monday.

- MARICHU A. VILLANUEVA

Capped by the traditional signing ceremonies, President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. (PBBM) affixed his signature to the voluminous books containing the P6.326-trillion national expenditure program (NEP). The newly signed 2025 GAA takes effect today.

Exercising the line-item veto powers of the President, a total of P194 billion worth of congressional "insertions" and re-alignments were removed from the Congress-approved budget law. The bulk of vetoed budget items were the P26 billion worth of public works projects and P168 billion worth of unprogrammed appropriations. The P194-billion total vetoed budget items reduced the 2025 GAA to P6.326 trillion from the original total of P6.352-trillion.

Only Senate President Francis Escudero and Sen. Grace Poe, chairman of the Senate finance committee, attended for the Senate. As authors of the 2025 budget law, the respective leaders and key members of the 19th Congress led by Speaker Martin Romualdez witnessed the signing rites.

Many of the lawmakers in attendance at the Palace rites were noticeably the same ones who took part in the bicameral conference committee (bicam). As the so-called "third Congress," it was at the bicam of the 2025 GAA where the vetoed "insertions" and re-alignments took place.

After both chambers ratified the bicam's consolidated versions of the Senate and the House 2025 GAA bill, former senator and now Department of Education (DepEd) Secretary Sonny Angara publicly decried the slashing of P12 billion from his agency's outlay. Then, it turned out the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) got zero subsidy for this year.