Marcos to spend holidays reviewing bicam-approved 2026 budget

December 23, 2025 | 5:07pm

MANILA, Philippines — With only eight days left before the new year, will President Bongbong Marcos have enough time to scrutinize the bicameral conference committee report on the 2026 national budget once it's ratified?

According to Acting Presidential Communications Office Secretary Dave Gomez, the president “will spend the holidays working.” 

Even if the report won’t be submitted to Marcos until the last few days of December, Gomez said the president’s team will begin its review of the agreed-upon amounts during the bicam hearings and compare them with the National Expenditure Program (NEP).

“As early as now, the President is already mobilizing his team to facilitate the immediate review of all amounts and corresponding provisions agreed in the bicam and trace the changes made from the originally submitted NEP,” he said in a message to reporters on Tuesday, December 23.   

The House of Representatives and Senate have agreed to extend the legislative calendar this year to give the bicam committee enough time to finalize the report and sign it on December 28.

Once signed, copies of the report will be distributed to members of Congress for their review, Appropriations Chair Mikaela Suansing promised. 

This only gives lawmakers a day to review the changes made to the 2026 General Appropriations Bill (GAB) before putting its ratification into a vote on December 29, when Congress resumes session. 

In 2024, the 2025 national budget was ratified within hours since the bicam report was signed by the committee. The swift approval raised questions over the bicam's blank line items, which former Rep. Stella Quimbo said were merely technical errors to be corrected by staff and were ministerial in nature.

While the executive branch is generally expected to have no access or role in the legislature’s budget deliberations, the approved revisions and special provisions made at the bicameral conference committee were livestreamed — a first in the history of the national budget process. 

This gives both the public and the executive knowledge of the specific deductions and increases made to the government’s projects and programs. 

Some of these include the billions realigned from the Department of Public Works and Highways’ (DPWH) proposed budget for flood control projects to priority sectors like education, health and agriculture. 

More cuts were even made after the Senate recalculated the material costs of infrastructure projects during the bicam. 

RELATED: Flood funds slashed: A breakdown of where DPWH’s P255B went | Bicam gives PhilHealth additional P16.5 billion from DPWH funds

The bicameral conference also restored P243 billion in unprogrammed appropriations and raised funding for cash assistance programs such as AICS and MAIFIP, reversing earlier decisions by both chambers to approve lower amounts.

Gomez said that the president’s team will conduct a “thorough review” of the budget to ensure that “taxpayers’ money will be put to good use.”

Corruption allegations, however, have already been hounding Marcos and his admin while investigations into the anomalous flood control projects and budget insertions take place.    

With the public closely watching, the administration risks facing a court challenge if another budget marred by pork-like allocations and questionable insertions is passed.

At the same time, if Marcos does not act on the budget before year-end, the government will have to operate under a reenacted budget until a new one is enacted.