5 days ago
6
Upgrade to High-Speed Internet for only ₱1499/month!
Enjoy up to 100 Mbps fiber broadband, perfect for browsing, streaming, and gaming.
Visit Suniway.ph to learn
Ghio Ong - The Philippine Star
June 20, 2026 | 12:00am
The main building of the Philippine Supreme Court in Manila as taken on Dec. 13, 2024.
Philstar.com / Martin Ramos
MANILA, Philippines — The Supreme Court (SC) sought yesterday documents detailing how the bicameral conference committee arrived at hundreds of billions of pesos worth of additions to the national budget, as it continued hearing petitions questioning alleged insertions in the General Appropriations Acts (GAA) for 2024 to 2026.
During the fifth round of oral arguments, Senior Associate Justice Marvic Leonen asked Solicitor General Darlene Marie Berberabe to compel both houses of Congress to produce supporting documents showing how the bicameral conference committee approved programs, activities and projects that were not originally included in the enacted national budget.
Leonen cited observations by Associate Justice Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa regarding the discretion of the bicameral committee with respect to appropriations.
“Specifically, he (Caguioa) pointed out 2024 when the GAB (General Appropriations Bill) and the Senate version were consistent with the NEP (National Expenditure Program), but there was an addition of about P400 or P500 billion introduced by the bicameral conference committee,” Leonen said.
The magistrate also directed Berberabe to present a certification that there are no supporting documents if there are none for the bicameral conference committee report.
“If there are none, an explanation as to how they arrive at the increases and decreases, because what we saw collectively was that there was centavos at the end. So we want to know how they are computed and why there is no documentation,” he added.
Meanwhile, Caguioa questioned the speed at which the bicameral conference committee conducted its budget deliberations, noting that one session lasted only 13 days compared to the separate House and Senate deliberations that stretched for up to 11 months.
He also pointed out that the bicameral conference committee is not in the Constitution.
