President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. yesterday expressed full support for his Cabinet a day after Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin lashed out at unnamed solons for threatening to return the proposed 2026 budget to the Palace.
Before leaving for a state visit to Cambodia, Mr. Marcos said he understands how members of his official family feel they are being treated too harshly, but urged them to remain calm just the same.
“I hope, lumamig na ‘yung mga ulo ninyo [I hope you have cooled down]. But I will have to just say that I perfectly understand why you are feeling a little unjustly beleaguered,” he said in his departure statement at Villamor Air Base in Pasay City.
Bersamin issued a strongly-worded statement on Saturday defending the Marcos Cabinet and condemning what he called “recent spins from certain members of the House of Representatives” allegedly attempting to shift blame for corruption onto the Executive Department.
House deputy speaker Ronaldo Puno had earlier proposed returning the National Expenditure Program (NEP) for 2026 for allegedly having allocations for infrastructure projects that had already been completed
“We have decided as a group to recommend the return of the 2026 national budget to the DBM because we do not know how to deal with it. We have to practically redo the entire submission to us. And we do not want to be suspected of any untoward action,” Puno said.
After consulting with House Speaker Martin Romualdez and getting assurances from the Palace that corrections will be made in the proposed national budget, Puno and other solons decided not to press its return.
Meanwhile, a militant party-list solon challenged the Office of the President to forego the customary approval of the OP budget.
“If Secretary Bersamin and the Marcos administration truly have nothing to hide, then they should welcome the most thorough examination of their budget,” Act Teachers Rep. Antonio Tinio declared.
“If there are no anomalies, why are they afraid to be questioned?” the party-list lawmaker asked in Filipino.
Likewise, Kabataan party-list Rep. Renee Louise Co said while corruption indeed exists in both chambers of Congress, “Marcos cannot claim innocence over what has transpired over the past three years of his administration.”
“We reject Bersamin’s desperate attempt to portray the Executive Department as innocent victims of congressional blame-shifting. The truth is that corruption has become worse under the Marcos administration,” she insisted.
Bersamin later explained that the President is not “angry” with Congress but takes issue with calls to return the NEP, which he described as “unprecedented and not in the constitutional order.”
Meanwhile, Bersamin said Malacañang does not anticipate a reenacted budget, calling the scenario “counterproductive.”
He stressed that Mr. Marcos has “a sound economic sense” and wants the budget process to move forward on schedule.
“We always want the country to move forward, not to go back or slow down,” Bersamin said.
Deliberations for the OP’s allocation begins today, with the Executive Secretary assuring lawmakers of the administration’s full cooperation.
