PRESIDENT Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. has ordered the Budget department to restore the original proposed funding for the Philippine National Police’s (PNP) information technology (IT) program, according to the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), which cited “variances” in its 2025 budget.
The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) will rechannel about P500 million worth of intelligence funds for the PNP under the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA) to the PNP’s IT program, DILG Secretary Juanito Victor C. Remulla said at a news briefing.
“As instructed by the President to our Budget Secretary, the budget for IT [program] will be reverted and the additional P500 million intelligence funds placed in the GAA will be allocated to this. So, the [intelligence fund] will return to the original budget of P820 million, from P1.3 billion,” he said in mixed English and Filipino.
Mr. Remulla said the funds would be allocated for the country’s integrated 911 system, assuring a fully audited system and scrutinous bidding.
“So, from intelligence fund to 911. So, it will be a fully audited system that is under scrutinous bidding.”
Mr. Remulla cited reductions in the PNP’s IT program under the P6.236-trillion 2025 national budget, noting that lawmakers added about P5 million to the law enforcement agency’s intelligence fund and almost P1 billion for its all-terrain amphibious rescue vehicles for Bicol region.
Under the PNP IT program, funding for the enhancement of the national police clearance system was reduced by P386 million to P232 million, from the original P619.5 million proposed in the National Expenditure Program.
The budget for the establishment of the Safe Camps Security System, also under the IT program, fell by P357 million to P161 million in the 2025 GAA from the original proposed funding of P472.668 million.
The funding for the PNP Drug-Related Data Integration and Generation System was also slashed to P196 million from P533 million.
Mr. Remulla said increasing funding for the DILG’s priority projects will not violate the 2025 GAA, citing Mr. Marcos’s veto message that cases of appropriations and new budgetary items introduced by the Congress in the budget “shall be subject to the national government’s cash programming, of service or prudent fiscal management, applicable budget execution rules and procedures and approval by the President based on the programs by priorities of the government.’’
“Considering that such cases and appropriations and new budgetary items will have corresponding effects on the outputs and outcomes of the agencies concerned, the DBM shall inform the said agencies of the changes in their respective appropriations and required the submission of their revised performance targets,’’ Mr. Remulla said.
He said the DBM would ‘’re-reprogram’’ the budget based on the President’s instructions.
“If the President will see that something is not needed, he will inform the DBM, ‘Please, replace it, revert it,’” he said in Filipino. “He can do that.” — Kyle Aristophere T. Atienza
