Senate Committee on Finance Chairperson Win Gatchalian clarified on Wednesday that most of the line items vetoed by President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. in the 2026 national budget were originally included in the National Expenditure Program (NEP) submitted by Malacañang to Congress.
In an interview, Gatchalian said seven of the nine vetoed items were already part of the executive’s initial budget proposal, while only two were introduced during congressional deliberations.
“The President actually removed nine items. Seven of which are in the National Expenditure Program, the original submission to Congress. Two of which were added during the budget deliberations,” Gatchalian said.
He stressed that Congress should not be blamed for most of the vetoed allocations.
“My point here is these line items under the Unprogrammed [Appropriations] were originally in the National Expenditure Program. It wasn’t Congress who added that. It was submitted to Congress,” he added.
Under the ratified 2026 General Appropriations Bill, more than ₱243 billion was allocated for Unprogrammed Appropriations, but only three items were retained by the President: ₱97.3 billion for Support for Foreign Assisted Projects, ₱3.6 billion for the Program on Risk Management, and ₱50 billion for the Revised AFP Modernization Program.
Marcos vetoed seven unprogrammed items worth a total of ₱92.5 billion, including Budgetary Support for GOCCs, fiscal support for the CARS program, insurance for government assets, prior years’ LGU shares, the RACE program, government counterpart funding for certain foreign-assisted projects, and personnel services requirements.