Marcos signs P5.768-T nat'l budget for 2024

President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. on Wednesday signed into law the P5.768-trillion national budget for 2024.

The 2024 budget, ratified by the House and the Senate on December 11, is 9.5% higher compared to this year's P5.268-trillion national budget.

"Today, we signed the notional budget, the instrument which tells how the taxes paid by the people will be returned to them. In effect, we are signing the renewal of our annual social contract with taxpayers that what they have paid faithfully will be rebated to them in full,'' Marcos said in his speech.

''Although it is teeming with numbers, this budget is more than a spreadsheet of amounts, or a ledger of projects,'' the President added.

Marcos said the budget details the government's battle plan ''in fighting poverty and combating illiteracy, in producing food and ending hunger, in protecting our homes and securing our border, treating the sick, keeping our people healthy, creating jobs, and funding livelihoods.''

He said every line of the budget would transform the Philippines for better lives of the people.

Marcos further underscored the most important budget commandment which is working for the people and not for among themselves.

''Honor the taxpayers who make the budget possible and in doing so we will bring closer to the brighter tomorrow that we aspire— for Bagong Pilipinas that we all envision for our people,'' Marcos said.

Senator Sonny Angara, who chairs the Senate Committee on Finance, earlier said that the consolidated version of the 2024 General Appropriations Bill (GAB) has not allocated confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) for non-security agencies.

Of the total proposed budget, Angara said at least P9 billion or 0.02% was allocated for CIF in 2024.
 
The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) earlier said the 2024 budget would focus on prioritizing expenditures for the country's economic growth and addressing the effects of inflation.

Confidential funds

Marcos earlier said that the confidential funds matter hounding the Office of the Vice President was "settled," as far as he is concerned.

He addressed the deletion of the P500 million in proposed confidential and intelligence funds sought by the Office of the Vice President, as well as the P150 million in confidential funds for the Department of Education (DepEd). Vice President Sara Duterte heads both offices.

"Well, that was actually the initiative of the Vice President... I’m not actually talking about the confidential funds and to not insist that they have such confidential fund...So, I think, as far as I’m concerned, it is a settled issue," Marcos said.

Marcos also said that 2023 was a year of necessary "structural changes" for the government—"for example our fiscal policy, even our monetary policy, our spending policy"—as the country moves away from "the COVID economy."

Amid the signing of the budget, Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri thanked the President for signing the budget on time.

He noted the increase in the budget of the Philippine Coast Guard which aims to continue the measures to protect the country's territorial waters.

'We are proud to have produced what I think is the best budget we have seen in years, with a good balance of social services, infrastructure development, and of course defense and security—including a much-deserved increase in the budget of our Coast Guard, who are at the frontlines of our continued efforts to protect our sovereign rights in the West Philippine Sea,'' Zubiri said.

''We are also proud to reflect the people’s concerns about confidential funds, by making the 2024 budget more transparent and our government agencies and offices more accountable in their spending,'' he added.

For his part, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino "Koko'' Pimentel III said: ''No comment. That’s presidential prerogative just as any citizen has the prerogative too of questioning the constitutionality of the budget law.''

House Deputy Minority Leader and ACT Teachers party-list lawmaker France Castro said that the P100-million hike for Basic Education Facilities and the P6.5 million additional funding for Improvement and Acquisition of School Sites are not enough.

“Those budget items that received significant hikes are band-aid solutions, namely the AICS (Assistance to Individuals in Crisis), MAIP (Medical Assistance for Indigent Patients) and TUPAD (Tulong Panghanapbuhay Sa Ating Disadvantaged / Displaced Workers),” Castro said in a statement.

Castro also questioned the Procurement Law exemption for Revised AFP Modernization and the reduction of Payment of Personnel Benefits from P135 billion to P29 billion.

She also said that ''agencies that do not have national security and intelligence services-related functions could still secure confidential and intelligence funds as long as the President certifies it to be an 'extreme necessity.'''

“This is the same reason the OVP got P125 million worth of confidential funds in 2022, even if it was not provided for under the 2022 national budget,” she added. —with Llanesca Panti/KBK/RSJ/VBL, GMA Integrated News