Senate President Vicente Sotto III on Monday said the chamber is planning to approve a budget lower than the executive-proposed National Expenditure Program (NEP) for 2026.
The recommended NEP for 2026 amounts to P6.7 trillion.
‘Yes. lower budget, lower than the NEP. We saw a lot of items that can be removed. And the president also agreed that they can be removed,’ Sotto told reporters on the sidelines of the turnover of a fully equipped Mobile Clinic to the Senate on Wednesday.
Asked about the amount, Sotto said, ‘it’s very difficult to say at this point.’
The Senate leader stressed that the ‘single most important piece of legislation’ that the upper chamber needs to pass is the 2026 budget.
‘That’s the most important. We need to pass a clean 2026 budget under my watch as far as the Senate is concerned. That’s my primary objective now,’ he emphasized.
‘I don’t allow (other issues) to stymie the work of the Senate, especially the Office of the Senate President,’ he said.
He added that senators intend to hold budget deliberations from Monday to Friday when plenary session resumes next week.
‘That’s our plan. As a matter of fact, as we speak, I’m about to meet Senator Sherwin Gatchelian to discuss that, to discuss certain matters,’ Sotto mentioned.
Gatchalian, the Senate Committee on Finance chair, earlier said he plans to sponsor the budget bill in the plenary on November 12.
Senate President Pro Tempore Panfilo Lacson on Tuesday said the chamber will block any ‘alien’ provisions that may surface during the bicameral conference committee’s discussions on the proposed P6.7-trillion national budget for 2026.
According to him, there is already an agreement in the Senate to make the budget process open and transparent all the way to the bicameral level and to the enrolled bill.
It is now a matter of figuring out how to go about it, Lacson said. ‘But the initial step is that no ‘alien’ provision can be inserted into the disagreeing provisions.’
‘For easier monitoring, we’ll just limit ourselves to preparing a matrix or juxtaposing the House version against the Senate version, and we’ll confine ourselves to synchronizing or reconciling the disagreeing provisions,’ he said.
‘So at least along that line, we’re in agreement, and that’s a good step toward making the passage of the budget transparent – all the way to the bicam and up to the enrolled bill,’ Lacson added.
He also vowed to scrutinize further the 2026 budget once it reaches the plenary, particularly the P255 billion cut from the Department of Public Works and Highways, and the earlier reported doubling of allocations for farm-to-market road (FMR) projects.