Sen. Panfilo “Ping” M. Lacson on Thursday evening proposed an “experiment” aiming to prevent a repeat of the corruption that led to the mangling of the 2025 national budget through congressional insertions and realignments.
For the 2026 budget, Lacson proposed that the Senate adopt the National Expenditure Program (NEP) in full, with the assumption that the items in the NEP were fully vetted by the Executive Department.
“For a change, why not have the Senate adopt the NEP so that if there will be problems in implementing projects in 2026, it will be on the executive department,” he said in Filipino in an interview on DZRH radio.
“At least if it’s the NEP, I’m sure the items in it were studied carefully by the implementing agencies concerned,” he added.
Lacson said he is considering moving to adopt the NEP at the briefing of the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) later this month.
He noted that the Senate and House of Representatives can both adopt the NEP, then guard the implementation of the projects.
Year in and year out, Lacson had called out questionable insertions and realignments by both houses of Congress in the budget bill.
“This will be a one-year experiment. If it fails, we go back to the realignment,” he added.
The Bench Files 
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