Sotto gets back at congressmen over budget

MANILA, Philippines — Senate President Vicente Sotto III has reprimanded congressmen who allegedly accused the Senate leadership of slashing their district budgets.

Sotto raised the issue during the Senate’s plenary session on Thursday, the second-to-the-last day of deliberations on the proposed 2026 national budget.

He said district representatives had contacted his political officer to accuse him and Senate President Pro Tempore Panfilo Lacson of cutting their allocations.

“It has come to my attention that several members of the House of Representatives… had called my political officer; especially district representatives, they are anxious in saying that the budget for their districts are being slashed here in the Senate, specifically by Senator Lacson and myself,” Sotto said.

“This is unfounded. We have not touched the budget of the districts. Our finance chairman can confirm this. I suggest to our counterparts – you discuss your apprehension with your chairman of appropriations. There is nothing happening here. We did not slash or touch the districts in the General Appropriations Bill. As a matter of fact, we have not touched anything yet. These are all periods of interpellation,” he added.

The Senate was expected to finish last night plenary deliberations on the proposed P6.793-trillion national budget for 2026, paving the way for next week’s period of amendments, followed by the second and third readings and the bicameral conference committee.

The leadership under Sotto and Lacson has vowed to clean up the national budget and remove or reduce funds – such as unprogrammed appropriations and duplicate public works items – that are prone to abuse and political patronage.

These irregularities, critics earlier said, marred the 2025 General Appropriations Act, which they called the “most corrupt budget” ever.

The current Senate leadership also pushed for the livestreaming of bicameral proceedings to dispel perceptions that lawmakers meet behind closed doors to insert funding for pet projects, which then become sources of corruption.

Congress and the executive branch have likewise drastically reduced the budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways, after corrupt district engineers exposed alleged kickbacks in ghost or substandard flood control projects that benefited government officials and lawmakers.