By Wilnard Bacelonia | Philippine News Agency
Senate President Pro Tempore Panfilo Lacson on Sunday said compromise is inherent in bicameral conference committee deliberations on the 2026 national budget but stressed that the integrity of the spending bill must remain non-negotiable.
Lacson said the Senate will fight to keep the budget “pork”-free even as lawmakers reconcile differing provisions of the proposed 2026 General Appropriations Act in the bicameral conference.
“The Bicam could be a matter of give-and-take but we must ensure the integrity of the budget and not allow self-interest. The interest of constituents is important but not the interest of kickbacks in infrastructure projects,” Lacson said in a radio interview.
He said the Senate’s stance is anchored on reforms already introduced in its version of the 2026 budget, aimed at preventing abuse and last-minute insertions that could undermine public trust.
Among these reforms is a plan put forward by Senate President Vicente Sotto III and Senate Committee on Finance Chairperson Sherwin Gatchalian for the chamber to ratify not only the bicameral conference committee report but the enrolled or final version of the budget bill.
“One more thing we will do is we’ll ratify not the Bicam report but the final version, which is the enrolled bill, which incorporates the Bicam report,” Lacson said.
Lacson said the Senate also removed “allocables,” which he described as a new form of pork barrel that allows funding for projects even before they are identified, opening the door to practices such as rigged bidding favoring selected contractors.
He added that the chamber struck out the Sustainable Infra Projects Alleviating Gaps (SIPAG), noting that many items appeared to duplicate projects under the Department of Public Works and Highways’ (DPWH) Basic Infrastructure Programs, and trimmed unprogrammed appropriations to include only legitimate items such as foreign-assisted projects and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) modernization program.
To reinforce accountability, Lacson said the Senate has made the budget process transparent by livestreaming proceedings from committee hearings to bicameral meetings.
“One more good thing is that all of those who introduce amendments will have a sense of responsibility to make sure their projects are free of corruption because projects that go wrong will be traced to them,” he said. (PNA)
