Marcos signs P6.3-T budget, vetoes P194 B

AKAP fund, zero PhilHealth subsidy retained

- By ALEXIS ROMERO

Citing the need to focus on development priorities and heed public clamor, President Marcos vetoed more than P194 billion worth of items in the 2025 national budget that he signed into law yesterday, including several public works projects and unprogrammed appropriations that ballooned fourfold.

Even with the vetoed amounts, however, public works and unprogrammed appropriations retained much of the massive amounts that were inserted by lawmakers during the bicameral conference, way above what was proposed by the executive in the National Expenditure Program (NEP).

The vetoed amount in public works mainly ensured that the appropriation would be slightly lower than that for the entire education sector.

Speaking during the signing of the P6.326-trillion budget at Malacañang, Marcos said the executive branch is one with the people in raising concerns over appropriations that are neither consistent with the country's development plans nor responsive to their needs.

"We take our role as stewards of our taxpayers' money seriously. And for this reason, after an exhaustive and thorough review, we have directly vetoed over P194 billion worth of the line items that are not consistent with our programmed priorities," the President said in a prepared speech delivered in the presence of lawmakers who passed the spending bill.

"These include allocations for certain programs and projects of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and those under the unprogrammed appropriations, which increased by 300 percent,” he added.

Marcos also placed under conditional implementation 12 projects, including the Ayuda sa Kapos ang Kita Program (AKAP), which seeks to protect minimum wage earners from the impact of rising commodity prices. Implementing rules or guidelines have to be issued to release the funding for programs under conditional implementation.