Gov’t raises next year’s proposed budget to P5.768 trillion—DBM

The Marcos administration has raised its proposed budget for 2024 to P5.768-trillion, a 9.5 percent increase from this year’s national expenditure program.

However, Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman noted that this is still one of the lowest annual budget increases.

She said they aimed to submit it to Congress days after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. delivers his second State-of-the-Nation Address on July 24, 2023.

Pangandaman said the 2024 National Expenditure Program (NEP) has already been presented to the President and would be presented to the Cabinet for their final approval today (Thursday).

“After a couple of weeks of sleepless nights, we had marathon meetings on the budget because as you know, budget preps usually start in February – the first quarter of the year when we release the budget call. And then after that, the agencies will submit their requests to us and then we hold a couple, a series of meetings with the departments and agencies for them to justify their budget proposals,” Pangandaman said.

She expects that the approval of the 2024 budget will be done faster than the previous year.

“Under the Constitution po, we should submit the national expenditures program one month after the SONA. On our calendar, we will submit our NEP to the Congress one week after the 24th (of July),” Pangandaman said.

She also underscored President Marcos Jr.’s directive to ensure that the 2024 budget will continue to support major programs prioritized in 2023.

These include education, infrastructure development, agriculture, livelihood programs, health, and digitalization. — Julito G. Rada

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