The solemnity of the Senate plenary session recently dissolved into a high-stakes legislative confrontation, creating a moment of intense drama centered on the nation’s 2026 General Appropriations Budget (GAB) Bill. At the heart of the explosion was a veteran lawmaker, Senator Alan Peter Cayetano, who rose to deliver a blistering, procedural challenge to Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, the chairman of the powerful Committee on Finance and the sponsor of the controversial Committee Report No. 18. The core of the dispute was a colossal question of accountability: who was responsible for the opaque, multi-billion peso adjustments that appeared in the budget report, and why were these monumental financial shifts made in a procedural “black box” after weeks of supposed public scrutiny?

Senator Cayetano articulated his immediate shock and deep concern over the massive, unexplained institutional adjustments, emphasizing that every single public peso must be backed by transparent documentation and a clear, named proponent. He pointed specifically to the colossal sum of P174 billion remaining in the unprogrammed funds—a category many lawmakers believe should be eliminated or drastically reduced—even after a marginal P68 billion reduction had been made. For a nation grappling with urgent needs in social services and critical infrastructure, the concealment of such vast discretionary sums sparked justifiable alarm, framing the debate as a fundamental crisis of fiscal integrity. He made it piercingly clear that the issue was not necessarily the allocation itself, but the lack of legislative clarity surrounding its authorship.

The tension escalated when Cayetano launched into his primary procedural attack, arguing that the legislative calendar had been rendered “useless” by the Finance Committee’s actions. He noted that the Senate had devoted 11 grueling days to the interpellation period, during which members meticulously questioned agency heads and presented consensus recommendations to the committee vice chairmen. The expectation, Cayetano argued, was that the committee would then meet, consolidate these agreed-upon consensus points, and present them as unified “Committee Amendments” to the entire chamber for final debate and voting. Yet, Chairman Gatchalian confirmed that no such subsequent committee meeting was held to discuss changes to the Committee Report. Gatchalian maintained that the Committee Report itself represented the formal amendments to the House’s original GAB and that any further revisions must now be submitted as cumbersome “Individual Amendments” from various senators in the plenary.

Cayetano swiftly countered that this process effectively nullified the entire point of the 11-day public debate, stripping away the ability for the chamber to build consensus and approve institutional changes in an efficient manner. He asserted that passing the budget based on the report without revealing the proponents of the massive institutional shifts created a system where the public and the majority of the Senate were being asked to rubber-stamp the decisions of a secretive few. He insisted that if the Senate champions transparency, it must embrace it wholly, stating that the current process lacked integrity by concealing the identities of those who moved the enormous sums.

To humanize the financial transfers, the veteran lawmaker presented specific, tangible examples of what this procedural opacity meant for the nation’s most vital sectors. He questioned the deep cut to the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), whose budget plummeted from P880 billion in the House version to P624 billion in the Committee Report. Cayetano argued that every economist points to infrastructure spending as the single fastest and most effective way to stimulate the economy, making such a drastic, anonymously proposed cut economically detrimental. Conversely, he noted a colossal P78 billion increase for the Department of Education (DepEd) but raised concerns about the disproportionate P9 billion allocation for State Universities and Colleges (SUCs), arguing that higher education institutions desperately needed more funding to meet operational demands. He also highlighted a painful P31 billion reduction in the budget for the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD)—a crucial agency for the nation’s most vulnerable—questioning the timing and logic of such a deep cut. He stressed that these were not minor line-item changes; they were multi-billion peso institutional realignments that fundamentally altered the nation’s priorities, yet their authorship remained shrouded in mystery.

Chairman Gatchalian, defending the Committee’s position, explained that the process, while perhaps non-traditional, adhered to the legislative requirements for revenue measures emanating from the lower house. He clarified that the Committee Report, which itself amended the House bill, was the product of a Technical Working Group (TWG) that had consolidated inputs from various sources—agencies, vice chairmen, and individual senators—before the report was filed. He promised that the committee would strive to improve the publication of the supporting matrices to show where the amendments originated, but he remained firm that any further changes would have to go through the lengthy and uncertain process of individual amendments on the plenary floor.

This distinction, however, was precisely what fueled Cayetano’s fury. He pointed out the disparity: any individual senator proposing a beneficial amendment—perhaps P500 million for an anti-stunting program or P1 billion for police equipment—would have to fight to convince the plenary and find funding, with no guarantee of passage. Meanwhile, the colossal, institutional adjustments—the billions added or slashed—were being passed wholesale without the full chamber having the ability to scrutinize their proponents or vote on them collectively. He argued that the process showcased a fundamental imbalance: small, noble proposals faced public accountability and a difficult road, while enormous, anonymous transfers were simply slipped into the final document.

In a dramatic conclusion that crystallized the entire debate, Cayetano issued an unambiguous ultimatum. He warned that if the committee refused to publish the matrix of proposals and unmask the proponents of the multi-billion peso allocations, he and other frustrated lawmakers would flood the plenary floor with dozens, if not hundreds, of individual amendments. This procedural move, he explained, would deliberately prolong the session, delay the budget’s approval, and force a tedious, time-consuming vote on every single item—an act of legislative gridlock designed to compel transparency. He argued that the “extraordinary budget with extraordinary problems requires an extraordinary solution,” suggesting that the current resistance to revealing the source of the vast fund transfers was unacceptable. His final demand was for the immediate publication of the complete matrix for Committee Report No. 18 on a public portal, fully detailing who proposed every single reallocation of public funds. The confrontation successfully forced the issue onto the center stage, signaling a powerful victory for public accountability and ensuring that the final journey of the multi-billion peso budget bill would be under the intense, unyielding scrutiny of the entire nation.