Overhauling the 2025 GAA

So PBBM reviewed and went over so many times the fine print before and after he signed the 2025 GAA.

- MARICHU A. VILLANUEVA

If it is any indication that the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA) badly mangled this year’s National Expenditure Program (NEP), President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM) convened another budget meeting at Malacañan Palace last Monday (Jan. 13). On his first working day after the New Year, PBBM summoned to Malacañang Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Secretary Amenah Pangandaman for a briefing on the revisions done on the 2025 GAA.

The Chief Executive initially went through the voluminous copies of the printed 2025 budget bill with a fine-toothed comb before he signed it into law on Dec. 30 last year. The President was assisted by Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin and the economic team led by Pangandaman. They went over the constitutional, legal and socio-economic issues and controversies arising from the “insertions” and realignments that got into the Congress-approved 2025 budget bill.

At the end of this initial Palace vetting process, PBBM vetoed a whopping P194 billion from the Congress-approved 2025 budget that consisted mainly of new budget items that were not in the President’s NEP. From P6.352 trillion, the 2025 budget law was reduced a bit to P6.326 trillion. The bulk of vetoed items came from new items “inserted” in the 2025 GAA for the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), while the Department of Transportation (DOTr) suffered the biggest cut.

Then again last Tuesday (Jan. 7), PBBM sat down with his entire Cabinet and tasked Pangandaman to explain the impact of the Congress-approved budget to their respective departments and agencies. They compared for the nth time the original submission to the 19th Congress of the NEP against the amendments done by lawmakers in the 2025 GAA.

At our