In the aftermath of the ₱74-billion PhilHealth subsidy scrapped from the 2025 national budget, Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson has secured crucial commitments from the Senate leadership to bring transparency into the murky budget process and finally expose those behind last-minute insertions and realignments.
During the Senate session on August 13, Lacson pressed Senate Finance Committee chairman Sherwin Gatchalian for accountability—and got it. Under the agreement, all amendments to the national budget bill—including realignments worth billions—must now carry the names of their authors, clear justifications, and a traceable record.
“[W]hen any of our colleagues will seek clarification on particular insertions or realignments or amendments, then the chairman of the Finance Committee will divulge the identity or identities of the proponents of the amendments on the floor, to make it of record,” Lacson declared on the Senate floor.
Gatchalian concurred, vowing not just disclosure during debates but also public access to budget movements—from the General Appropriations Bill (GAB), to the committee report, to the version passed on second reading—via official websites.
“The chairman of the Committee on Finance can elaborate and also reveal the history of those changes… because as your chairman, I have to justify those changes in the committee report,” Gatchalian said. “The justification to the addition is as important [as] the justification to the deduction.”
The Senate’s shift comes amid public outrage over how the ₱74 billion earmarked for PhilHealth under the Sin Tax Law mysteriously disappeared during the bicameral conference committee (bicam) deliberations—with no explanation and no paper trail.