2 months ago
33
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
Marc Jayson Cayabyab - The Philippine Star
January 10, 2026 | 12:00am
Employees enter the Senate of the Philippines as seen in this photo release on August 5, 2024.
Senate PRIB / Released
MANILA, Philippines — Senate President Vicente Sotto III said the Senate is ready to defend the constitutionality of the unprogrammed appropriations (UA) in the 2026 national budget that has been questioned before the Supreme Court (SC).
The petition was filed by Caloocan Rep. Edgar Erice and Mamamayang Liberal party-list Rep. Leila de Lima, who questioned the constitutionality of UA and sought a temporary restraining order against its use.
“I’m very confident the SC will uphold the budget and favor it. Unprogrammed funds are constitutionally valid based on SC decisions,” Sotto said in a Zoom press briefing yesterday.
Sotto said there is legal basis for Congress to give the national government standby funds that it can tap into for priority projects, but only if there are excess revenues or loans.
While the Senate made its version of the budget clean already, President Marcos trimmed it further by vetoing seven UA items and retaining only three.
Sotto said the petitioners were just “nitpicking” when they assailed the legality of UA before the SC.
As to his colleague in the majority Sen. Erwin Tulfo’s proposal to totally delete UA except for foreign-assisted projects, Sotto said this can only be done by converting UA projects to programmed items in the regular budget, but only with an improved economy and revenue collection.
“Easy to say, just delete it,” he said.
Sotto stressed the need to set aside standby funds for foreign-assisted and other big-ticket projects, like the Metro Manila Subway and modernization of the military.
‘Constitutional’
As far as the House committee on appropriations is concerned, the retention of the UA is constitutional, Lanao del Sur Rep. Zia Adiong said on Thursday.
Adiong, vice chairman of the committee on appropriations, said that there are existing safeguards in the use of UA.
“As far as we’re concerned, it’s constitutional because these are the bases for us to deliberate the budget,” he said in an online interview.
Adiong said the UA is different from the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) or pork barrel that the SC has struck down as unconstitutional.
“Unprogrammed appropriations can only be implemented and can be utilized only for a specific purpose, subject to specific guidelines and criteria,” he said.
He said he respects the move of his colleagues in the House – Erice and De Lima – to question before the SC the UA in the 2026 national budget.
For his part, House deputy minority leader and Akbayan party-list Rep. Perci Cendaña maintained that the UA should be removed from the national budget.
“We hope the Supreme Court will see merit in the petition of Rep. De Lima and Rep. Erice in ensuring that the UA should be removed from the 2026 budget because of the huge opportunity for misuse and abuse,” Cendaña said in a separate statement.
The Makabayan bloc in the House of Representatives said that it has a pending petition filed in 2024 before the Supreme Court seeking to declare the UA as “unconstitutional.”— Marco Luis Beech, Jose Rodel Clapano
