President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. on Tuesday directed his Cabinet to revisit the administration’s programs contained in the National Expenditure Program (NEP) but were defunded by Congress, particularly those critical to the socioeconomic program.

Marcos gave the directive as he convened the first full Cabinet meeting at Malacañan Palace in Manila for this year.

“We have to reexamine so that the programs that we wanted, that we put in the NEP, can somehow be restored,” Marcos told his Cabinet.

“For the rest of the departments, I need you to give me the priorities — the things that we prioritized in the NEP that were removed in terms of budgeting, in terms of appropriations,” the President added.

Marcos said many things have to be fixed, citing the PHP12-billion decrease in the budget for the maintenance of roads, PHP500-million reduction in the funding for routine maintenance of bridges, and the PHP21-billion budget cut for feasibility studies.

He said he is willing to sit down with each department to make sure the government’s actual expenditure program would resemble the NEP.

He added that he wants to know what happened to the the departments’ respective budget allocations, specifically the funds for critical projects.

On Dec. 30, 2024, Marcos signed into law the PHP6.326-trillion General appropriations Act for 2025 and vetoed over PHP194 in line items he deemed inconsistent with his administration’s priorities.

He directly vetoed some provisions not responsive to the peoples’ needs, and pursued conditional implementation on certain items to ensure prudent utilization of public funds.

The 2025 expenditure program is 9.7 percent higher than the FY 2024 budget of PHP5.768 trillion and 22 percent of the projected FY 2025 gross domestic product. (PNA)