House finalizing budget amendments

A HOUSE of Representatives committee on Monday moved to channel billions worth of flood control funds to education and health as they began revising the proposed P6.793-tril-lion national budget for 2026.

- Kenneth Christiane L. Basilio Reporter

The House subcommittee on Budget Amendments Review redirected P255 billion in flood control funding originally allocated for the Public Works department next year towards the Health and Education departments, in line with President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr.'s call to strengthen human capital development.

“We want to ensure that we are able to reallocate it in a way that the budget will be most responsive to the needs of the Filipino people,” said Nueva Ecija Rep. Mikaela Angela B. Suansing, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee.

The reallocation follows allegations of irregularities in flood control projects, including substandard, incomplete or nonexistent infrastructure, in a country prone to flooding.

The House subcommittee overseeing fund rechanneling is part of a broader push to improve transparency in budget deliberations, replacing the previously opaque “small committee” that handled revisions to the national spending bill.

The House will begin plenary deliberations on the proposed national spending plan today (Sept. 23), Ms. Suansing said, over a month after the Budget department submitted the National Expenditure Program to Congress.

Ms. Suansing said deliberation on the budget will continue until the House passes the budget bill on second reading before the end of September.

Congressmen raised the Department of Education’s (DepEd) proposed budget by 2.8% or P26.54 billion to P955.04 billion for 2026.

The bulk of the proposed funding increase would go towards DepEd’s classroom construction efforts amid a shortage in government schools, more than doubling the allocation to P36.5 billion from P13.2 billion.

The boost in classroom construction budget could fund additional 19,300 classrooms nationwide, helping ease classroom shortages in government schools, Party-list Rep. Brian Poe Llaman-zares, vice-chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, told lawmakers.