Proposed 2023 budget clears bicameral conference committee

MANILA, Philippines – The Senate and the House of Representatives finished reconciling differences in versions of the proposed 2023 budget that they separately approved.

The bicameral conference committee – composed of representatives from the upper and lower chambers of Congress – approved on Monday, December 5, the report on next year’s spending plan, clearing an important hurdle before the measure is ratified by Congress, and transmitted to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s desk for his signature.

The Marcos administration’s proposed 2023 budget amounts to over P5.268 trillion.

Full details of the amendments in the final proposed budget have yet to be made public, but initial reports indicate a full restoration of the P150 million in intelligence and confidential funds sought by the Department of Education (DepEd), and the proposed P10-billion budget of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).

Previously, the House realigned P5 billion from the proposed 2023 NTF-ELCAC funding after making institutional amendments, a move that the Gabriela Women’s Party called an “initial win.”

The Senate also previously reduced the DepEd’s confidential fund from P150 million to P30 million, realigning P120 million for healthy learning institutions.

Monday morning’s meeting was only the second of the bicameral conference committee, led by Senate finance committee chairperson Sonny Angara and House appropriations panel chairman Zaldy Co.

In a statement, House Speaker Martin Romualdez guaranteed that the budget would be passed before Congress goes on a Christmas break starting December 17.

“With this budget, which is the first full-year spending plan proposed by the President, we hope to hasten our economic growth, which should benefit our people,” said Romualdez, Marcos’ cousin.

Top budget priorities include education, infrastructure, health, social protection, and agriculture. – Rappler.com