House passes budget bill, keeps P1.3-B cut for OVP

After two weeks of ple- nary debates, the House of Representatives termi- nated last night budget deliberations of agencies, including the Office of the Vice President (OVP), after President Marcos certified the 2025 national budget bill as urgent.

- DELON PORCALLA

ALLS Voting 285-3, the House approved on third and final reading House Bill 10800, or the General Appropriations Bill, which is the P6.352-trillion spending measure for the next fiscal year.

The House leadership, after holding a caucus with the supermajority coalition of power blocs in the chamber, decided to keep the P733million reduced budget for the OVP, which is P1.29 billion lower than Vice President Sara Duterte's proposed P2-billion.

allocation.

"It is important for the OVP to still have a budget to be able to continue serving our countrymen," Speaker Martin Romualdez said, rejecting calls from many of his colleagues to either reduce this further, or make it zero, if only to punish Duterte for disrespecting lawmakers.

The President's certification of the measure as urgent expedites the process, allowing both second and third reading to be done successively on the same session day.

It usually takes three calendar days before a bill hurdles third and final reading. In a letter sent to Romualdez, Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, on behalf of Marcos, informed the lower chamber that the Chief Executive is “certifying to the necessity of the immediate enactment of HB 10800.”

“This is entitled: An act appropriating funds for the operation of the government of the Republic of the Philippines from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31 (2025) pursuant to provisions of Article 6, Section 26 (2) of the 1987 Constitution,’” Bersamin stated in the letter.

In a statement, Romualdez emphasized the importance of keeping the OVP funded to ensure that services provided by the office continue uninterrupted and to safeguard the jobs of its employees.

This was the consensus arrived at by leaders of political parties under the supermajority coalition, among which are Lakas-CMD which the Speaker heads, Nacionalista Party, Nationalist People’s Coalition, National Unity Party and Party-list Coalition Foundation Inc.