Marcos: No blank pages in 2025 national budget
![Marcos reiterated that there were no blank pages in the bicameral conference committee report on the 2025 national budget.](https://images.gmanews.tv/webpics/2025/01/Copy_of_Copy_of_Copy_of_Copy_of_Copy_of_GNO_3_2025_01_30_12_49_50.jpg)
President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. on Thursday reiterated that there were no blank pages in the bicameral conference committee report on the 2025 national budget.
In his speech during the 20th National Convention of Lawyers in Cebu City, Marcos said he read and analyzed the 4,057 pages of the General Appropriations Act (GAA) for 2025.
“And so, for those of you, up to now I cannot find those damned blank items. We’ll keep looking, we’ll keep looking. But I'm really convinced that they simply do not exist because it is not allowed to exist,” he said.
“So for those of you who think that the Presidency is just handshakes, photo ops, I assure you, that fine print is alive in my office as well,” he added.
Marcos on December 30 last year signed into law the P6.326-trillion national budget for 2025 and vetoed over P194 billion worth of line items that are not consistent with his administration's priorities.
Former President Rodrigo Duterte and Davao City 3rd District Representative Isidro Ungab earlier flagged supposed discrepancies in the 2025 budget.
But, Marcos said Duterte is “lying.”
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Former executive secretary and senatorial aspirant Vic Rodriguez, Ungab, and others have asked the Supreme Court (SC) to declare the 2025 national budget as unconstitutional amid alleged irregularities and supposed blank items in the bicameral conference committee report.
On Monday, House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations acting chairperson Stella Quimbo confirmed that there were blank items in the bicameral report on the P6.325 trillion national budget for 2025. But she quickly added that funding for these items had been identified before the signing of the report.
But despite having blank items, she said that the funding for each item in the budget was already identified before the members of the bicameral conference committee had signed the report.
“Lahat ng naging corrections ng ating technical staff, lahat po ‘yan ay ministerial na lang. Ibig sabihin calculator activity na lang po. Wala na po silang discretion, dahil lahat po ay decided na by the bicam members at the point of signing,” said Quimbo.
(All the corrections made by our technical staff were only ministerial. This means that only calculator activities were done. They did not have any discretion because everything was already decided by the bicam members at the point of signing.)
Meanwhile, Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin last week said that the Office of the President would not be held liable if the issue is brought before the SC.
—VAL, GMA Integrated News
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