Senate resumes budget talks

THE Philippine Senate will hold a plenary session on Tuesday, despite the Dec. 2 local holiday in Pasay City, to avoid delays in finalizing the chamber’s version of the P6.793-trillion national budget for 2026, its Finance committee chair said.

“We had a talk with (fellow senators) that we will have a session even if it’s a holiday, because if we have a session on Wednesday for a period of amendments, it will be delayed,” Senator Sherwin T. Gatchalian told a news briefing on Monday.

He added that senators had already agreed to hold a plenary session on Tuesday despite the local holiday.

Monday’s session was suspended after the third floor of the Senate building was hit by fire last Sunday, resulting in water leaking into the Sessional Hall.

The chamber was scheduled to conduct the period of amendments for the proposed spending plan.

Mr. Gatchalian added that this would avoid further delays as the chamber targets passing the budget on second reading by Dec. 3 and on third reading by Dec. 9.

“There’s just one week to prepare the documents and then we’ll go into the bicameral conference committee,” he said.

“Before the process was amendments, second, third reading — all in one day. Members didn’t have time to read the amendments, so now we’ll give them time to review the amendments,” he added.

The House of Representatives, earlier, approved on final reading House bill No. 4058, the proposed General Appropriation Act.

He said that the bicameral conference committee will be scheduled for Dec. 11 to 13 and would be livestreamed to ensure transparency.

“Since this is the first time this will happen, we have yet to sit down formally on what will be the course of this bicameral conference committee,” Mr. Gatchalian said.

He added that the Senate is working to finalize the bicameral report by Dec. 16 and ratify the budget by Dec. 17.

“Hopefully, we can sign the bicameral report by Dec. 16, then the tentative signing of the budget will be on Dec. 29,” he added. — Adrian H. Halili