Poe: Unprogrammed funds in 2025 budget bill set at P158 billion

The Marcos administration's economic managers have set unprogrammed appropriations at P158.7 billion under the proposed 2025 national budget due to low excess revenue collection expected for next year.

This was disclosed by Senator Grace Poe—who speaks on behalf of the economic managers as sponsor of the 2025 General Appropriations Bill (GAB)—after Senate Minority Leader Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III raised questions on the provision under the 2024 national budget law which allows the government to look for idle reserve funds and utilize these to fund projects lodged under unprogrammed appropriations.

"Meron na naman P158 [billion] lang ang prinopose.. P158.7 billion or 2.5% for unprogrammed [funds]. Maliit lang," Poe said.  

(Only P158 billion was proposed. P158.7 billion or 2.5% for unprogrammed funds. A small amount.)

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) defines unprogrammed appropriations as those which provide standby authority to incur additional agency obligations for priority programs or projects when revenue collection exceed targets, and when additional grants or foreign funds are generated while are appropriations with definite/identified funding as of the time the budget is prepared.

According to Poe, the so-called "fourth mechanism" or the search for idle funds is no longer included in the current version of the 2025 GAB as the economic managers already "deemed efficient the excess revenue especially now that there is an ongoing court case," referring to the petition before the Supreme Court questioning the transfer of P60 billion from PhilHealth to the National Treasury.

Pimentel is among the petitioners on the Supreme Court case against the transfer of PhilHealth's excess funds.

"At tiyaka napadali ang solusyon ng problema dahil wala nang pagkukunan," Poe added.

During Pimentel's interpellation, it was disclosed that a total of P164.9 billion idle funds were transferred to the National Treasury.

With the economic managers only setting P158.7 billion unprogrammed funds for 2025, Pimentel asked what would happen if Congress, once again, increased the amount of unprogrammed funds in the 2025 national budget law.

"If Congress adds P300 billion more, would you tell us that that is an unwise move, not good budget practice?" Pimentel asked.

In response, Poe said that the economic managers will support the move if it is given by Congress revenue sources.

"If Congress wants to spend P300 billion more, then they should give P300 [billion] more in revenue," Poe replied.

At this point, Pimentel stressed that the proper budgetary practice for this is to pass a supplemental budget instead of taking the "shortcut" of lodging more projects under the unprogrammed funds.

"Parang ngang nag-shortcut eh [It's like a shortcut]...In my opinion, the better budgetary practice if as required by the economic managers, Congress needs to point to the definite source of funding, that is the principle behind the supplemental budget," Pimentel said.

In December last year, Pimentel argued that the law on the 2024 national budget is unconstitutional due to the P450-billion increase in unprogrammed funds introduced by Congress which pushed the total amount of the budget this year over the P5.768 trillion national budget as originally proposed by the Executive Department.

The Executive Department originally proposed P281.9 billion unprogrammed appropriations for 2024 under the National Expenditures Program (NEP) but it rose to P731.4 billion in the final version of the spending plan.

In January, lawmakers from the House of Representatives brought the matter to the Supreme Court and urged the high tribunal to nullify the excess in unprogrammed appropriations embedded in the 2024 GAA.

On Wednesday, Senator Risa Hontiveros urged a resolution to keep the budget bill within the amount proposed by the Palace.

At the plenary deliberations for the proposed national budget for 2025, Pimentel asked how much has already been collected to fund the P731.45 billion worth of projects lodged under the unprogrammed appropriations for 2024.

"As of October 31, P161.848 billion was funded," Poe responded.

According to Poe, the projects lodged under the unprogrammed appropriations as originally proposed by the Executive Department were prioritized in the P161.848 billion funds collected by the government.

"We did prioritize the foreign-assisted projects like the maintenance, repair, rehabilitation of infrastructure facilities, the Panay-Guimaras-Negros Bridges Project, payment for Right-of-Way, strengthening assistance for government infrastructure program, public health emergency benefits and allowances for healthcare and non-healthcare workers," Poe said. — BM, GMA Integrated News