Davao del Norte 1st District Rep. Pantaleon Alvarez (AFP FILE PHOTO)

MANILA, Philippines — The presence of blank items in the bicameral conference committee’s version of the then-proposed budget for 2025 is tantamount to a crime, Davao del Norte 1st District Rep. Pantaleon Alvarez said on Tuesday.

Alvarez, in a statement, thanked Marikina 2nd District Rep. Stella Quimbo for admitting the presence of blanks in the General Appropriations Bill (GAB), claiming that this may fall under falsification of public documents.

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Quimbo admitted on Monday that there were blanks in the GAB but quickly clarified that the bicameral conference committee had already decided on the allocations and that the blanks were just for computation purposes.

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“We should thank Cong. Stella for her honesty.  Her admission of what happened means she admitted that there was a falsification of legislative documents.  That can be penalized by jail time alongside monetary penalties,” Alvarez said.

“The power of the purse is with Congress.  The budget, all the items in the GAA (General Appropriations Act), should be approved ng Congress.  What happened is that Congress approved the bicam report with blanks.  The total value of the blanks is zero pesos.  But why is that there were appropriations in the GAA, and the contents were not presented to the plenary for ratification?” he added. 

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Quimbo, in an ambush interview on Monday afternoon, reiterated that the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA) is legal, as the allocations on the then-proposed budget were already decided by the bicam members before both the House of Representatives and the Senate ratified the report.

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Quimbo, who is acting chairperson of the House committee on appropriations, said that technical staffers of the House of Representatives and the Senate are allowed to make changes as long as they are ministerial — noting that these are merely “calculator activity.”

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But Alvarez said that what happened may have been that lawmakers made changes to the GAB post-ratification — or after the House and the Senate approved the GAB at their respective plenary sessions.

“I think what happened is, the congressmen in the Committee on Appropriations, they directed the staff or they themselves filled in the blanks even after ratification,” he claimed. 

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“In other words, the values inserted there were not approved by the plenary, that’s why it is not authorized by Congress.  In shorter terms, placing these amounts and figures did not come from someone in authority.  That’s a crime.”

“How will that be considered as corrections?  The allocations placed in the blanks were not approved by the plenary, that’s why it should be zero.  If the plenary approved the zero allocation in the bicam report, the enrolled bill and the GAA should also have zero allocation.  But a different thing happened, instead of following the zero-approved budget, they placed figures even without Congress’ approval.  Those are not corrections.  That is an unauthorized insertion,” he added.

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It was former president Rodrigo Duterte and his allyjpwinner gaming, former appropriations panel head and Davao City 3rd District Rep. Isidro Ungab, who first raised concerns about blank items in the 2025 budget. 

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