MANILA – President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. tasked government agencies to re-examine the administration’s programs contained in the National Expenditure Program (NEP) but were defunded by Congress.
According to the Chief Executive, he wants government agencies to focus particularly on those considered critical to his administration’s socioeconomic programs.
“We have to reexamine so that the programs that we wanted – that we put in the NEP – can somehow be restored,” President Marcos said at Malacañang Palace.
“For the rest of the departments, I need you to give me the priorities – the things that we prioritized in the NEP that were removed in terms of budgeting, in terms of appropriations,” he added.
“So, what are those? In each department, what are those that are absolutely critical to the socioeconomic program as we delivered to the Congress? Paano natin ibabalik kasi critical ‘yung mga programs na nawala,” he further said.
President Marcos also stated that he is willing to sit down with each department to ensure that the government’s actual expenditure program will resemble the NEP.
He said many things have to be addressed, including the P12-billion decrease in the budget for the maintenance of roads, P500-million reduction in the funding for routine maintenance of bridges and the P21-billion budget cut for feasibility studies.
Marcos signed into law the proposed national budget for fiscal year 2025 on December 30, 2024 but has directly vetoed over P194 billion worth of line items that are not consistent with his administration’s priorities./PN
