The General Appropriations Bill, AKA national budget signed by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. into law on the last working day of 2024 is facing a number of legal challenges before the Supreme Court.
Critics say the PHP6.33 trillion (about $150 billion) budget contains provisions which are unconstitutional.
Civil society groups had accused Congress of diverting funds to their pet projects at the expense of the Education and Health departments.
Although he is not part of any of the groups which said they would challenge the 2025 budget due to what they say are its noticeable flaws, former senator Panfilo Lacson warned that the last minute tweaks by the President were not enough.
Marcos had delayed the signing of the spending law, citing the need to review its provisions.
He ended up vetoing PHP194 billion worth of items in the budget that had been approved by Congress as these were supposedly “inconsistent with the administration’s priority programs.”
But critics said the presidential veto failed to address the supposed irregularities, as the budget still failed to meet the constitutional requirement to prioritize education and health.
Among the most noticeable cuts from the budget was the PHP74 billion subsidy for the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth).
Marcos and Finance Sec. Ralph Recto said the subsidy was unnecessary since PhilHealth has a huge surplus.
The health sector countered this argument by saying that the health insurer can and should use its surplus to increase the benefits of PhilHealth members.
As an example, a Filipino who is billed PHP100,000 for hospital and medical expenses and doctors’ fees only gets around PHP10,000 from PhilHealth.
In contrast, in countries like Canada and the UK, which have universal health coverage for its citizens, all health-related expenses are shouldered by the state.
It must be noted that PhilHealth has an untapped PHP600 billion in reserve funds.
Under the Marcos-approved budget, the health sector only has a 2025 budget of PHP267.8 billion, fifth highest among all sectors.
Two non-government organizations from the health sector – Medical Action Group and Action for Economic Reforms, along with health activist Dr. Edcel Salvana – said on December 31 that they would file a case against the Marcos administration for defunding PhilHealth.
Lacson specifically cited the Constitutional requirement that the Education sector should receive the biggest share of the budget as the reason for the coming legal challenges.
Owing to certain technicalities, the Education department appears to have a slightly larger share of the budget than the Public Works department but some parts of the Department of Education’s share are conditional.
It is the so-called “conditional implementation” of a dozen administration programs this year which are leading to the challenges.
Lacson noted that President Marcos had only vetoed PHP26 billion of the PHP288 billion in “congressional insertions” under the proposed funding for the Department of Public Works and Highways.
Lacson pointed out that the final version of the signed budget law meant that the DepEd budget is “still not assigned the highest budgetary priority, contrary to Article XIV Section 5 of the 1987 Constitution.”
Among the challengers is retired SC associate justice Antonio Carpio, who said he was not convinced that the approved budget would pass the constitutionality test.
Executive Sec. Lucas Bersamin – himself a retired SC chief justice – said the administration had “thoroughly reviewed” the budget and were certain that it could face any legal challenges before the high tribunal.
He added, however, that they would take no attempts to try and block the expected legal challenges.
