PMCJ on 2025 PH National Budget: Resources Must Be Allocated to Social Protection, Climate Crisis Impacts Mitigation and Adaptation; Not For Patronage Politics, Interest of the Wealthy Few

As massive floods and catastrophic incidents continue to speak about our country’s response to the climate crisis, voices from the climate justice movement will be heard on all the fundamental national issues, even, especially when it comes to the national budget.

We, the Philippine Movement for Climate Justice, express our dismay and our loss of trust and confidence in the Congress as the 2025 National Budget shows a clear disconnect between government expenditure vis-a-vis the people’s needs and recovery efforts, in light of the ongoing climate crisis.

Budget allocations to various government programs, that are interrelated in the efforts for survival and a liveable future for all, are crucial and must be subjected to public scrutiny that largely calls for a more transparent and participative manner of budget proceedings. As one of the poorest and vulnerable nations, the Philippines must be resilient to the climate shocks resulting from the intensification of climate change impacts.

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THE ISSUE AT A GLANCE

Both Houses of the Philippine Congress on a bicameral conference committee approved the final version of House Bill No. 10800 or the proposed Php 6.352 trillion national budget for 2025 on December 11. The budget remained controversial up to its enrollment of copies to the President for its final approval and adoption due to its questionable budget cuts on zero state subsidy for PhilHealth while the Office of the Vice President retained its budget despite her ongoing investigation on corruption and threat to the life of the Presidency and the generous budget for Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) over Department of Education (DepEd).

Before the national budget’s approval, it follows a budget cycle that requires a citizen engagement through the Budget Partnership Agreements with civil society organizations (CSO), Bottom-up Budgeting (BUB), and other participatory budgeting mechanisms to be exhausted in preparation of their proposed budgets. However, these mechanisms evidently failed to promote a pro-people and whole-of-nation approach but instead still delivered an anti-poor and anti-development budget for the Filipino people.

The consensus among Senators on the approval of the national budget remained contentious due to their contrasting stances. The national budget determines which office must be prioritized in terms of its needs but it also shows the determination of the government to act vigorously according to the social and economic needs of the Filipinos.

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ON DEBT

We have been establishing, not only on the local but also on the global scale, that the fund for climate change adaptation and mitigation should not be accessed through loans. As it stands, the 2025 National Budget is expecting a budget deficit of PHP 1.5 trillion while the debt burden including the principal repayments will reach over PHP 2 trillion. This glaring figure means that debt-service payments would cover 32.37% of the national budget, overshadowing expenditures for social services.

The country’s Climate Change Action Plan (CCAP) Subprogram 2, which supports the implementation of nationally determined contribution (NDC)—the commitment to help advance global efforts to stabilize the world’s climate under the Paris Agreement—are to be funded using the US$500-million policy-based loan to the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

The World Bank’s US$600-million Philippines First Energy Transition and Climate Resilience development policy loan, which aims to scale up the adoption of clean energy technologies and improve water management across water uses, is set to be approved by 2025.

While we welcome the increase of allocation for climate change expenditures compared to 2024, issues on the continued borrowing of the government in the name of climate action must be addressed. Not only will the country allocate its majority of the resources for loan repayments, but these climate loans that come with conditionalities will add up to the outstanding debt portfolio of the country.

The country’s serious debt situation makes it vulnerable to external shocks that can lead to economic instability and stunting growth. These loans from International Financial Institutions (IFIs) have historically pushed the privatization of public services from water, electricity, transportation, education, and healthcare services. This business-as-usual scheme of creating long-term debt obligations impedes the country’s efforts in recovery and long-term goals that are in line with the Paris Agreement.

ON CLIMATE INSURANCE

The government’s National Adaptation Plan (NAP) 2023 – 2050, which builds on the National Framework Strategy on Climate Change (NFSCC) and the National CCAP, serves as the basis for identifying key sector outcomes as “pillars for adaptation actions for societal well-being, stability, and economic resilience”.

The NAP talks about improving climate insurance and ensuring its inclusiveness through government subsidization such as the Philippine Crop Insurance Corporation. However, it lacks a structured process to effectively and efficiently reach the basic sectors. There were also mentions of using private financing which is blatantly and vaguely ironic.

When the country was hit by multiple consecutive typhoons, billions of agricultural damage and losses were incurred. Farmers and fisherfolk are the sectors that are primarily affected by these and so, the people’s resilience must be built for future shocks.

The logic of insurance speaks of anticipatory action, which is the preemptive approach for the country as our basic sectors are disaster-vulnerable. The mentioned plans lack the actual implementation effective for the essential sectors that hold the country together when it comes to the campaign to attain food security.

ON INFRASTRUCTURE

When we talk about climate disasters, we sure hear of the current administration’s prioritization of flood-control projects. A big chunk of the national budget is allocated to the Department of Public Works and Highways–a matter which must be greatly examined as the flood-control projects can’t be felt with the massive flooding in the country in times of typhoons and heavy rainfall.

In July, the President boasted about the five thousand flood control projects and days later, Typhoon Carina submerged various regions in the country.

We challenge the government that the prioritizing of flood control projects must be reviewed as large infrastructures also exacerbate climate impacts. Real mitigation projects must be implemented with actual positive outcomes and preservation and protection of river basins and watersheds near flood mitigation facilities. From the National Expenditures Program, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Fund, also known as the Calamity Fund has a funding allocation of PHP 31 billion. The Congress version of Calamity Fund is now down to PHP 20.5 billion. At the same time, there has also been another PHP 500 million decrease in this budget during the approval of the Bicameral Conference. We stand that these budget cuts must be reinstated to strengthen government efforts to prepare communities ahead of a natural disaster and implore strategic anticipatory action measures.

ON HEALTH

Batangas residents have been fighting fossil-fueled power plants in their area as thousands of respiratory and heart diseases, including in children, keep on rising due to the said dirty projects. Last September, Toledo residents voiced their opposition to coal plant expansion, urging the company to comply with the law by conducting health impact assessments as their community’s health is on the line.

Budget allocation for Health is essential to people’s well-being and defunding PhilHealth is a serious issue. Even if PhilHealth has a PHP 284 billion budget for 2025, there would be a zero allocation for subsidy as it removes the PHP 74 billion state subsidy which could be used to expand coverage and absorb the burgeoning informal sector.. This goes to show that apart from the blame game that the government narrative is showing by pointing out the agency’s failure to spend its resources, it highlights the incapacity of the current government to address the underspending of agencies, addressing issues of anomalous transactions, and acting on corruption.

It violates the people’s constitutional right to health. Defunding PhilHealth will increase the people’s cost to afford healthcare services; which the Universal Health Care Act mandates that all Filipinos must have immediate access to benefits.

Respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, which are the typical ailments people get from fossil projects, are already proven costly as these require specialized treatments; which will have coverage limitation on this budget cut.

It is often overlooked how these budget cuts on health highly affected the poorest of the poor in terms of access to healthcare facilities, services, and even tracking of severely impacted communities due to fossil fuel projects.

ON ENERGY

The country’s continued reliance on fossil fuels may be argued to be brought about by existing programs on energy that offer band-aid solutions, without fully committing to the transition to clean energy.

Programs such as these are the rural electrification program facilitated by the National Electrification Administration (NEA) that boasts as “new and reengineered” by the notorious EPIRA Law. Under the National Total Electrification Roadmap (NTER), the total electrification project has energized only 3,468 households or 11 percent of its target, as of September 2023.

NTER specifically mentioned that the archipelagic geography poses a significant challenge to achieving total electrification that calls for higher government involvement. They revealed that the country’s insufficient infrastructure remains a significant impediment to delivering essential services like electricity, particularly in remote and isolated areas.

Recognizing that apart from the need to address the unreliability of energy sources from the fossil-fueled energy industry of the country, energy access in the geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas in the Philippines is still a problem. The subsidy for the National Power Corporation for its Missionary Electrification Program (MEP) must be given priority and not a budget cut of PHP 730 million. Under the 2025 National Expenditure Program, the proposed allocation for the implementation of the MEP is PHP 1.6 billion, the Congress reduced it to PHP 1.120 billion and now approved at only PHP 870 million. Increasing its budget is important in bringing electricity to off-grid areas that will ensure access to electricity in areas where extending the grid is technically or economically challenging.

More than ever, public resources must not be used to fund detours on false solutions that enable the continued use of fossil fuels in the energy mix and will trap more Filipinos into poorer situations because of higher electricity prices. While we welcome the allocation of PHP 45 million to the implementation of Energy Virtual One Stop Shop, we challenge the government even further to prioritize and fast-track the application of renewable energy technologies, as the goal should be to replace and phase out fossil fuels and not just to augment parts of the energy sources for renewables.

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In times of crisis, a “prosperity budget” of the few is misleading, insensitive, and unacceptable. For a country to prosper, the government must prioritize the welfare of the general public in these convoluted times.

The lack of comprehensive understanding of the situation of the marginalized has been evident in the continued dole-out programs of the government enabled by the public officials in the recent bicameral conference committee.

Even if the controversial Ayuda sa Kapos ang Kita Program (AKAP) was slashed to more or less PHP 26 billion, it still survived and kept in the national budget. The aid approach to multiple crises is alarming, if not tiring, when various sectors call for a systemic change.

This morning, the Office of the Executive Secretary released a statement stating that the scheduled signing of the budget bill will not push through on December 20, to “allow more time for rigorous and exhaustive review”. This is after all the criticisms raised on the bill, as its current version reduced budget in so many agencies for social protection programs; all in the name of politicians’ budget for the upcoming 2025 elections, dubbed in the hundreds of billions of unprogrammed appropriations.

Being the worst budget in recent years, it deserves all the calls to the President to veto it. What we want from the government is to adequately fund the people’s needs, and not defend the defunded budget items. We, climate justice advocates, must retaliate when the legislature continues to oppress the people through fiscal processes and decisions. As the climate crisis continues to devastate our country, we must stand our ground, slam false narratives, and amplify our calls.

Development action is directly related to climate action. We call to empower communities and civil society organizations to join the struggle for climate justice, while continuing being critical to the government. This is to not only strengthen the movement but also to ensure that communities and the vulnerable people of the country are prepared and prioritized in our fight for a cleaner, greener and sustainable future. ###

FOR INQUIRIES:
Sheila Abarra
Senior Media and Communications Officer
Philippine Movement for Climate Justice
mediacommunications@climatejustice.ph