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Marc Jayson Cayabyab - The Philippine Star
December 6, 2025 | 12:00am
MANILA, Philippines — Senate finance committee chair Sherwin Gatchalian assured senators that they would all be informed of the line-by-line amendments in the proposed 2026 national budget, which the upper chamber passed on second reading on Thursday.
Following the second reading approval, Gatchalian said electronic copies of the general summary of the General Appropriations Bill (GAB) were sent to the senators’ offices.
“The complete details, including the line-by-line amendments and all pertinent attachments, will be made available on Saturday, Dec. 6, prior to the approval on third reading of the fiscal year 2026 General Appropriation Bill,” Gatchalian added.
Senate Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano interpellated the budget as he questioned the presence of unprogrammed funds, although the leadership vowed to trim these standby funds accessible only with excess revenue but had been prone to abuse.
But in ending his interpellation, Cayetano called the Senate-approved GAB still a “good budget.”
The current Senate has vowed to do away with the “budget insertion” practice of making secret amendments to the budget behind closed-door bicameral conference committee meetings.
Instead, amendments made on the budget had to be done on the plenary and disclosed to all senators and to the public, following the mess brought about by what critics dubbed “most corrupt ever” 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA).
The latest version of the P6.793-trillion national budget for 2026 restored the practice of allocating the highest budget to the education sector, at P1.38 trillion. — Jose Rodel Clapano, EJ Macababbad
