Five days after approving the ₱7.2-trillion 2027 budget on second reading by voice vote, the House has now put numbers on it: 282 in favor, 13 against, one abstention. The Senate's finance chair says that is not the end of the argument.
The House approved the 2027 General Appropriations Bill on third and final reading on Monday, Oct. 12, by a vote of 282-13-1, the Daily Tribune's Edjen Oliquino reported. On Tuesday, Senate Finance Committee Chair Sen. JV Ejercito said the Senate would not take the House version at face value.
"We will not simply accept"
"We will not simply accept whatever the House has passed," Ejercito said, per the Tribune. If the Senate's review finds "unreasonable reallocations or pivotal programs with insufficient funding," he said, the chamber will pursue corrections in its own version. Abante TNT's Dindo Matining separately reported him saying, in translation: "Once we receive it, we will conduct our own independent review."
The Senate has not yet received a copy of the bill, both outlets reported, so the review he promises has not formally begun.
Ejercito acknowledged warnings from budget watchdogs and civil society groups about realignments in the House version, calling them, in Abante's translation, "serious questions that deserve serious scrutiny." He added that any change needs a clear, explainable basis: if a project was added, the money was taken from somewhere, and he asked where. He also called for a strong Calamity Fund ahead of an anticipated Super El Niño, following reports that a large amount was cut from it. Neither outlet gave figures for that cut.
What the critics say
According to the Tribune, watchdog and opposition criticism of the House version centers on a lack of transparency in fund realignments, cuts to social services in favor of infrastructure and discretionary funds, and an alleged eye on the 2028 elections. The Tribune also reported allegations that foreign-assisted railway projects were cut to make room for insertions; see our separate report on that.
The Tribune quoted Ejercito calling the finance chair's job especially hard after the flood control scandal: "The challenge is great to restore our people's trust in the budget process." Senate leadership, it reported, has pledged strict safeguards against "last-minute insertions."
The unanswered questions
Ejercito's question, where did the money come from, is the right one, and it is also one the House has not publicly answered in the reporting we reviewed. Neither the Tribune nor Abante reported a House response to the watchdogs' criticisms. Neither gave a peso total for the realignments in the final version. When the House passed the bill on second reading, ₱116 billion in last-minute amendments were reported, including ₱32 billion for DSWD's AICS and ₱14.8 billion for DOLE's TUPAD; whether those figures changed by third reading is not reported in these accounts.
It is also worth noting what a 282-13-1 vote does and does not say. It says nearly the whole House voted yes. It does not say what those 282 members knew about where the changes came from.
Context
The Senate's turn comes after a year in which the flood control scandal made budget insertions the central grievance of the public. Ejercito has already flagged, in earlier hearings, 155 DPWH flood projects worth ₱8.2 billion that lacked geotags or basic paperwork, in a ₱643-billion DPWH request. The Senate, under its own process, must now take up the bill once it is formally transmitted.
Sources
- Daily Tribune (Edjen Oliquino), "JV backs stronger health, calamity response," Oct. 13-14, 2026 — https://tribune.net.ph/2026/10/13/jv-backs-stronger-health-calamity-response
- Abante TNT (Dindo Matining), "JV Ejercito: Senado handang itama ang House budget version," Oct. 13, 2026 — https://tnt.abante.com.ph/2026/10/13/jv-ejercito-senado-handang-itama-ang-house-budget-version/news/
- Pulpulitiko, "House Passes ₱7.2-Trillion 2027 Budget on Second Reading by Voice Vote" (prior coverage)