House passes 2018 budget on third reading

September 26, 2017

The House of Representatives approved the 2018 budget on third reading Tuesday night, with 223 ‘yes’ votes, 9 ‘no’ votes and zero abstentions, a statement from the Lower House said.

Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno welcomed the approval and “look[s] forward to the passage of the budget earlier than [we would have] expected”, the statement added.

The proposed budget allocates around 1 trillion pesos for the ‘Build, Build, Build’ infrastructure program and 40 billion pesos for free quality tertiary education, among other programs.

The Lower House-approved General Appropriations Bill is expected to be transmitted to the Senate on September 27  where committee-level deliberations have begun.

Both houses of Congress will then convene a bicameral conference committee to reconcile the differences between their respective versions of the General Appropriations Bill before it is signed into law by President Rodrigo Duterte.

The proposed P3.767 trillion 2018 national budget, 12.4 percent higher than last year’s budget, amounts to 21.6 percent of GDP. It will support the government’s objectives of achieving robust and inclusive growth of 7 to 8 percent in 2018. DMS