CEBU 5th District Representative and former Deputy Speaker Duke Frasco has expressed full support for Navotas Representative Toby Tiangco’s call for greater transparency and accountability in the national budget process, particularly in disclosing amendments made after plenary
“I commend Cong. Toby for courageously exposing a long-standing practice that has undermined the constitutional mandate of Congress to deliberate and approve the national budget in full view of the public. I fully support his call not only to abolish the small committee but to disclose the amendments made in the 2025 budget,” Frasco said.
Frasco noted that even during his time as Deputy Speaker, members of the House, including himself, had no access or visibility into the amendments or insertions made by the so-called “small committee” after the passage of the General Appropriations Bill on second and third reading.
“Even as Deputy Speaker in the 19th Congress, we had no eyes on the amendments made to the budget after second and third reading. From that point until the signing of the GAA by the President, we were kept in the dark. That is a serious flaw in the process,” Frasco emphasized.
Frasco echoed Rep. Tiangco’s demand that all individual amendments to the proposed national budget be debated and approved in open plenary.
“This is not merely a procedural issue, it is a matter of restoring the people’s trust in their government. If we are to pass the most important law of the year, the General Appropriations Act, then every change to it must be visible, justified, and above board. No backroom deals. No secret insertions,” Frasco said.
He also joined Rep. Tiangco in urging current House leaders to release the amendments made by the Speaker’s committee to the 2025 budget, noting that this is the only way to show good faith and signal a genuine shift toward reform.
“If the current leadership is sincere about transparency, then there should be no hesitation in releasing the list of amendments made by the small committee for the 2025 budget. The Filipino people deserve to know where their money was allocated, and why,” Frasco stressed.
Frasco added that the President’s recent call for accountability in anomalous flood control projects underscores the need to begin with transparency in the budget process.
“If we want to investigate irregularities in infrastructure spending, we must first examine the process by which those projects were funded. That starts with reviewing what was changed, added, or deleted in the budget after it was supposedly approved in plenary,” he said.
Frasco concluded by affirming his continued commitment to fiscal responsibility and public accountability.
“We cannot move forward by covering up the mistakes of the past. We must expose them, learn from them, and correct them, if we are to regain the confidence of the people we serve.”
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