House OKs PCO's proposed 2025 budget sans questions

The House of Representative on Friday approved the P2.281-billion proposed budget for 2025 of the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) with no questions asked.

APEC party-list Representative Sergio Dagooc moved to terminate the deliberation on PCO’s budget, which is 24.37% or P735.152 million lower compared to its P3.016 billion budget for 2024.

Data provided by the PCO showed that the highest allocation of the budget would go to the PCO-Proper with P713.3 million, followed by P492.3 million to the Bureau of Broadcast Services, and P439.6 million to the Philippine Information Agency.

The PCO said the budget excluded automatic appropriations such as Retirement and Life Insurance Premiums (RLIP).

According to Dagooc, the PCO deserved a higher budget.

“I fully agree with you on your sponsorship speech. As a matter of fact, I do believe that the PCO deserves more budget,” Dagooc told AKO BICOL party-list Representative Raul Bongalon, budget sponsor for PCO.

“So with that importance of this office, there is no member of the minority who wishes to interpellate. So with that, I move to terminate the interpellation, the period of interpellation, for the PCO and its attached agencies,” he added.

In his sponsorship speech, Bongalon stressed that the PCO is the communications arm of the government.

PCO acting secretary Cesar Chavez extended his gratitude to the House for the “expeditious approval” of the office’s budget.

“The fact that our budget breezed through plenary without a single question asked and no opposition manifested spurs us more to deliver on the  outcomes  we have promised in that budget,” he said in a statement.

He further said the the fast approval of the budget “is a vote of confidence in our mission and organization, which we shall work to redeem in full.”

Meanwhile, the PCO said that its major projects include the Kapihan sa Bagong Pilipinas, Usapang Agrikultura, the National Information Summit, the Communications Development and Media Engagement, and the Operationalization of the Government Communications Academy.

Aside from this, the PCO said other major projects are the Operationalization of the Visayas Media Hub, the Freedom of Information Program, Maging Mapanuri Program, and the preparation for the country to host the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2026.—KBK/RF, GMA Integrated News