(黑料社 file photo)
MANILA, Philippines 鈥� The Supreme Court (SC) would not find blanks if it combed through the 2025 national budget documents, two House of Representative leaders said on Friday.
听House Assistant Majority Leaders Jude Acidre of Tingog Party-list and Jil Bongalon of Ako Bicol Party-list reaffirmed such sentiments as the SC ordered the lower chamber, along with the Senate and Malaca帽ang to submit the original copies of the 2025 General Appropriations Bill (GAB) and the 2025 general appropriations enrolled bill ahead of the preliminary conference for a petition alleging 鈥渋rregularities鈥� in the national budget.
鈥淚 stand by the regularity of the 2025 GAA (General Appropriations Act). It is above board. In fact, we welcome this initiative on the part of the Supreme Court to really require the copy of the enrolled bill,鈥� Acidre said in a statement:
Bongalon meantime said the House would comply with the High Court鈥檚 request.
鈥淏ut again, we are confident that even if we submit or send the original copies of the GAA of 2025, including the encoded bill to the Supreme Court, nothing in those documents, we can see any blank items, especially the amounts that are being questioned,鈥� Bongalon said in a statement.
听In their petition for certiorari and prohibition, former Executive Secretary Victor Rodriguez, Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab, and other petitioners claimed that the bicameral conference committee submitted a report containing blank items on the GAB, allegedly violating the 1987 Constitution.
They asked the high tribunal to declare Republic Act No. 12116, or the GAA of 2025, 鈥渦nconstitutional.鈥�
听The GAB is the proposed law detailing the government鈥檚 budget and allocations for agencies, programs, and projects, while the bicameral report is the reconciled version of the budget bills from the House and Senate.听
Once signed by the President, the GAB becomes the GAA.
Acidre, meanwhile, noted that the petitioners are allies of House-impeached Vice President Sara Duterte who, he said, only filed such a petition for diversion.
鈥淲hile we welcome this, it鈥檚 good to remind the people that this is an attempt to really deflect the issue from the impeachment into all these cases which from our end is simply trying to take attention away from the impeachment process,鈥� Acidre said.