MANILA, Philippines — There was no admission of any crime when Marikina Rep. Stella Quimbo admitted the presence of blank items in the bicameral conference committee report on the 2025 national budget, a lawmaker said on Wednesday.
1-Rider party-list Rep. Ramon Rodrigo Gutierrez was reacting to Davao del Norte Rep. Pantaleon Alvarez’s statement.
The latter said Quimbo’s admission about the blank items means she “admitted that there was a falsification of legislative documents,” which can be “penalized by jail time alongside monetary penalties.”
READ: Duterte allies raise budget ‘blanks’ in SC petition
“I have yet to read yung allegations po. I’m not too sure. I’m just gonna base it on what you’ve relayed to us now. But I’m not sure that would be falsification. Because the admission was just that, allegedly, the admission is that there were blanks. But there was no admission to having changed a document,” Gutierrez in an interview.
“On the allegation of crime, I don’t think there’s an admission of any crime, if any, and then on the budget, we still stick to the original defense; It’s still within the process. And any challenge would be welcome to the Supreme Court,” he added.
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“Now, to say that that would be a crime, I think that would be a stretch. But of course, we still have to see the allegations,” Gutierrez further said, while other members of the House’s Young Guns bloc agreed to him.
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On Monday, Quimbo reiterated that the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA) is legal, as the allocations on the then-proposed budget were already decided by the bicam members before both the House of Representatives and the Senate ratified the report.
She said technical staffers of the lower and upper chambers are allowed to make changes as long as they are ministerial, noting that these are merely “calculator activity.”
Also on Monday, former Executive Secretary Victor Rodriguez and Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab filed a petition for certiorari and prohibition, where they asked the Supreme Court to declare Republic Act No. 12116, or the General Appropriations Act (GAA) of 2025, as “unconstitutional.” The issue started after former president Rodrigo Duterte Ungab, who was a former appropriations panel head, raised concerns about blank items in the 2025 budget.
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