All eyes are now on the bicameral conference committee (bicam) meetings as representatives from the House of Representatives and the Senate reconcile conflicting provisions and allocations in the proposed P6.793-trillion 2026 national budget.

The bicam was originally scheduled for Friday, December 12, but Senate finance committee chairman Sherwin Gatchalian said the technical staff of both chambers needed more time to reconcile disagreeing provisions and amounts.

With the bicam set to begin on Saturday, December 13, here are some things the public can expect:

Livestream, documents will be public

This is the first time the bicam will be live-streamed, after the public outcry over the discovery of last-minute insertions in the 2025 national budget.

While some lawmakers allegedly pushed back against the move, the House and Senate approved concurrent resolutions to live-stream the meetings.

Gatchalian said that only lawmakers and their staff will be physically allowed inside the room for now. However, the Senate budget sponsor assured budget watchdogs that all documents will be made public and the meetings will be live-streamed.

“May proposal sila, doon na lang nila i-propose (If they have a proposal, then they should propose it during the bicam),” he said.

Gatchalian also said that all documents, including transcripts and machine-readable documents, will be publicized. This will allow watchdogs to scrutinize the spending plan.

The People’s Budget Coalition and Roundtable for Inclusive Development earlier called on the bicam members to allow civil society observers to attend the meetings, including any small group discussions where budget adjustments will be finalized.

Disagreeing provisions only

According to Gatchalian, they will also limit the discussions to conflicting provisions and allocations of the budget.

“We start with the [General Appropriations Bill] and we talk about the disagreeing provisions and then we’ll discuss the general and special provisions,” he said.

These conflicting allocations include the unprogrammed appropriations. The House version of the spending plan includes P243 million in unprogrammed funds, while the Senate reduced this to just P174.5 million to include foreign-assisted projects and the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ modernization program, among other “smaller” items.

To prevent duplicate allocations in the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) budget, Gatchalian said that the Senate version includes specific project details such as station numbers.

Under the Senate version, the DPWH budget was also reduced to P570 billion from P624 billion to account for adjustments in construction material costs.

Gatchalian noted that the Senate removed unprogrammed funds for SAGIP (Strengthening Assistance for Government Infrastructure and Social Programs), which has been flagged by critics.

Senate President Pro Tempore Panfilo “Ping” Lacson also introduced a provision that prevents elected officials from participating in social aid distribution. 

“As a general provision siya. Ginawa na namin general para sagip niya lahat (We included it as a general provision so that it covers all programs),” Gatchalian said.

General provisions are considered as universal rules that cover all funds, while special provisions are specific rules for funding of certain agencies.

The budgets of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) — where Gatchalian’s brother Rex serves as secretary — and the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) were reduced to P245 billion and P50 billion, respectively.

House Deputy Speaker Ronaldo Puno earlier accused the Senate of slashing funds for social aid programs under the DSWD and DOLE. But Gatchalian explained that these were simply restored to the agency’s requested amounts.

The Senate and House may also butt heads over the upper chamber’s move to restore the Office of the Vice President’s budget to the original P889 million after the House reduced it to P733 million.

Both chambers of Congress will also need to reconcile the budget for the education sector, as the Senate increased the education department’s budget from P914 billion to P987 billion. Under the Senate version of the spending plan, the education sector will receive a whopping P1.38 trillion in funding for 2026. – Rappler.com