House panel OKs OP budget hike for 2026 ASEAN hosting

Citing “institutional courtesy,” the House committee on appropriations on Monday swiftly approved the budget proposal of the Office of the President (OP) amounting to P27.28 billion for 2026.

Voting 56-5, the panel chaired by Nueva Ecija Rep. Mikaela Suansing moved to terminate discussions on the proposed OP budget, which increased by 72-percent from the current year’s P15.8-billion.

Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin faced legislators at the agency’s budget briefing amid criticisms made by the Palace official to congressmen for allegedly attempting to blame the executive department for the issues in the budget process amid calls for accountability in anomalous flood control projects.

“The OP wants to manifest the President’s commitment to transparency and accountability that is required of all government offices… All of us must be ready to accept accountability and responsibility over our actions and programs,” Bersamin told legislators.

In his presentation, Bersamin said some P17.5-billion of the proposed P27.28 billion OP budget is allocated for the hosting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in the Philippines. 

The Philippines being ASEAN chair shall host to hundreds of meets from the end of December 2025 until around November 2026, when the chairmanship ceases. 

Of the P17.5 billion, P10.7 billion is meant to be released directly to the OP, Bersamin said.  While the rest shall be disbursed directly to various departments and agencies with roles to play in the mounting of the 2026 ASEAN summits. 

For 2025, the OP was allocated P5.4-billion for ASEAN preparations.

Meanwhile, on Bersamin’s appeal for OP budget approval, House Minority Leader Marcelino Libanan then sought clarification on his previous statement accusing “certain House members” of shifting the blame “for their own corruption and failures onto the Executive Branch.”

“There’s the tradition in the House that we give institutional and parliamentary courtesy to the Office of the President. However, there are pressing issues, which we need to be clarified,” Libanan said.

It has been a tradition in Congress during budget briefings to swiftly approved the proposed budgets of the OP as a matter of courtesy.

“That statement was more to stress our institutional separation from the House of Representatives, some of whose members, and I hope it’s not the majority, have made statements that we, in the Cabinet, considered to be against institutional separation of powers,” Bersamin said.

“We do not intend that (statement) to rile up the tension between our departments. We come here seeking your support for our institutional budget… There is nothing intended that is malicious or to malign the House of Representatives,” he added.