A budget watchdog on Friday challenged the House of Representatives to reform its handling of the national budget, asserting there is “no technical reason” such changes cannot be implemented before the end of the year.

The People’s Budget Coalition (PBC) published an eight-point checklist of recommendations, calling on Congress to release all supporting documents for projects under the approved 2027 General Appropriations Bill (GAB) and to explain budget insertions. As the measure that sets the national government’s annual spending, the GAB is made up of line items whose supporting papers are what allow costs, locations, and project scopes to be independently checked.

The group likewise urged the House to create an online public verification system, reform the system of “pork” or red flags, end traditional parliamentary courtesy, implement People’s Budget Proposals addressing issues such as the cost-of-living crisis, and institutionalize civil society participation in the national budget process. Read together, the checklist centers on making each budget entry traceable from its paperwork to the project it funds — the kind of cross-checking Mr. Abante argues should be open to ordinary people.

“There’s absolutely no technical reason for these observations and monitoring initiatives to not to be done now,” PBC co-convener Adolfo Jose Montesa told reporters during a press briefing.

Mr. Montesa noted that the Senate and executive agencies have already collaborated with the PBC on similar measures, meaning the House need only catch up with their transparency efforts. That framing casts the chamber as the remaining institution to catch up, not as a body being asked to attempt something without a working precedent inside government.

Underscoring how easily the recommendations could be carried out, fellow PBC co-convener Kenneth Isaiah Ibasco Abante presented a preview of the coalition’s proposed online verification system. The tool sorts budget items by project while flagging inconsistencies such as incomplete documents, high costs, and incorrect locations — the same categories of red flags the coalition’s checklist asks the House itself to address.

“Imagine a system in which ordinary people can cross-check every infrastructure line item in a digital workflow,” Mr. Abante said. “We just decided we would do this last Tuesday, no? And then now we have a system.”

Given that the PBC delivered such progress over a single weekend, he argued there is no reason the House cannot follow suit.

The coalition’s year-end framing now supplies a concrete benchmark for the challenge it issued: whether the chamber releases the 2027 GAB supporting documents, explains its insertions, and moves toward a public verification system comparable to the preview the PBC has already demonstrated.

— Francesca S. Abalos

Source: BusinessWorld Online