Ortega dismisses budget challenge, Ungab denies politics

Deputy Majority Leader Paolo Ortega dismissed a petition filed before the Supreme Court seeking to declare the 2025 national budget as unconstitutional, calling it a political maneuver aimed at destabilizing President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s administration.

Davao City 3rd District Rep. Isidro Ungab, one of the petitioners, denied politics as his motive and stated that he filed the petition to protect the education sector budget after noticing irregularities in the bicam report.

Ungab claimed that many people he consulted, including former President Rodrigo Duterte, agreed that certain provisions left blank were highly irregular, while Quimbo defended these as technical adjustments allowed under the omnibus motion provisions.

The House Committee on Appropriations chairperson Rep. Stella Quimbo asserted that all amounts in the bicam report had been determined before signing and any subsequent changes were merely corrections for errors.

Both sides await the Supreme Court's decision, with Ungab emphasizing that an invalidation of the budget does not necessarily mean government operations will stop.