Romualdez: House to prioritize proposed P6.35-T national budget for 2025

Speaker Martin Romualdez on Wednesday assured the public that the House of Representatives will prioritize the approval of the proposed P6.352 trillion budget for 2025.

“Aside from our commitment in approving the few remaining LEDAC priority measures agreed upon during its 5th full council meeting June 25, the House will again work doubly hard to pass the proposed P6.352-trillion 2025 General Appropriations Bill before we go on break by the end of September 2024,” Romualdez said in a statement.

“We will then transmit the proposed budget to the Senate for its consideration,” he added.

He also said the House would provide enough funding for education, agriculture, modernization and welfare programs of the armed forces, infrastructure, among other legacy projects of President Marcos.

Romualdez then said that support to these sectors is crucial to make food products accessible and affordable and stir development in an environment of peace and stability.

“We have to continue building roads, highways, ports, school buildings, climate change-proof structures, and similar infrastructure to maintain and expand economic growth. Progress has to reach the remotest communities,” he said.

Under the proposed 2025 budget, the agencies getting the biggest share of the government appropriations include education (Department of Education, state universities and colleges, Commission on Higher Education, and Technical Education and Skills Authority), public works (Department of Public Works and Highways), health (PhilHealth), interior and local government (Department of the Interior and Local Government), and defense (Department of National Defense).

The third regular session of the 19th Congress will open in the morning of July 22.

In the afternoon of the same day, the President will deliver his third State of the Nation Address before a joint session of Congress at the Batasang Pambansa complex in Quezon City.—AOL, GMA Integrated News