'Nothing wrong if Marcos joins budget bicam deliberations'

Senator-elect Panfilo Lacson yesterday welcomed President Marcos' plan to observe the bicameral deliberations on the 2026 national budget, seeing it as a good step toward transparency.

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"As long as the President will not actively participate in the bicameral conference deliberations and just sit as an observer, lest he be misunderstood as encroaching on the time-honored tradition of the legislature's exercise of the 'power of the purse,' I support such gesture as it will send a clear and very strong signal to the members of Congress not to make a mockery of our role in the budget process and that we should not treat the national budget as individual prerogatives, not aligned with the policy di