The House approved the proposed 2027 General Appropriations Bill on second reading Wednesday night. It did so by voice, so the public does not get to see who said aye.
According to The Filipino Times (staff report, Oct. 7), the House approved House Bill 10858, the ₱7.2-trillion proposed 2027 national budget, on second reading by viva voce voting. Deputy Speaker Janette Garin of Iloilo presided and declared that the "ayes" prevailed. The report gives no vote count.
₱116 billion in changes
Before the vote, the House adopted a substitute bill carrying about ₱116 billion in amendments recommended by the Budget Amendments Review Subcommittee, the Filipino Times reported. That follows nine days of plenary debate from Sept. 15 to 25. The listed items include:
- Education: ₱500 million for school safety and security, ₱350 million for the ARAL program, ₱952 million for the Basic Education Facilities Fund, ₱50 million for the Madrasah Education Program, ₱75 million for the Special Needs Education Program and ₱25 million for the Indigenous Peoples Education Program.
- Social welfare and labor: ₱32.06 billion for the DSWD's AICS program, ₱14.819 billion for the DOLE's TUPAD program and ₱3.312 billion for DOLE's integrated livelihood and emergency employment program.
- Technical education: ₱635.2 million for TESDA's STEP program and ₱356 million for its Training for Work Scholarship Program.
The itemized figures above add up to roughly ₱52 billion, by our arithmetic. The report does not say where the rest of the ₱116 billion goes, or what was cut to pay for it. That is a notable gap for a bill that, by the House's own account, was debated in public for nine days before its final shape was settled in a subcommittee.
Why the voice vote matters
A viva voce vote is routine for second reading in the Philippine House, and nothing in the report suggests a rules violation. But it means there is no record of how individual members voted on a ₱7.2-trillion bill with a double-digit-billion block of late amendments, and the Filipino Times report mentions no opposition or dissent, quoted or otherwise. Whether anyone objected is simply not in the account we could read.
What happens next
The House extended its session to Monday, Oct. 12 instead of adjourning, with lawmakers aiming to pass the bill on third and final reading before Congress goes on recess. The report does not explicitly say third reading will take place that day. The Senate, which has been busy with an impeachment trial, will then take up its own version.
Context
Earlier Pulpulitiko reporting noted that the proposed 2027 budget carries ₱1.114 trillion in interest payments alone, about 15.9 percent of the total, and that House leaders touted a ₱111.98-billion unprogrammed appropriations line, the smallest share in decades. Programs such as AICS and TUPAD are cash-and-work assistance schemes that serve ordinary households; their budgets are routinely argued over because of how they are distributed, a concern we are noting from past debates and not from this report.
Sources
- The Filipino Times, "House approves ₱7.2-trillion 2027 budget on second reading," staff report, Oct. 7, 2026: https://filipinotimes.net/latest-news/2026/10/07/house-approves-p7-2-trillion-2027-budget-on-second-reading/