PRESIDENT Ferdinand Marcos Jr. vowed on Wednesday, October 15, 2025, that the bicameral conference committee meeting for the 2026 national budget will be streamed live in a bid to promote transparency amid the ongoing corruption issues in the government.
Marcos said livestreaming the bicam budget hearing was agreed upon by Senate President Vicente Sotto III and House Speaker Faustino Dy III in order to provide the Filipino public a clearer understanding of the budget process and the opportunity to monitor any questionable insertions or additions in the proposed budget.
“To further encourage transparency, I intend to livestream the bicam. So, that’s what I told them already,” Marcos said in an interview following the oathtaking of the newly elected officers of media groups covering Malacañang.
“I have the agreement of the Senate President and the Speaker na ganoon ang gagawin natin. We will livestream the entire process so that if there are questionable, shall we say, insertions or additions or all that, it will also be clear who moved -- who made those changes or who proposed those changes so that people will know,” he added.
The President also said that there will no longer be a “small committee” involved in the budget deliberations.
“There is no more small committee. Iyong dating ginagawa that they have a bicam, then they suspend, and then there’s a small committee. Wala ng small committee,” he said.
“From the last time that I saw the last version of the budget, wala naman akong nakita na humihiwalay doon sa plano ng National Government kaya hindi siguro kailangan mag-veto,” he added.
Marcos said the initiative is part of his administration’s effort to maintain public trust and support, and to focus on what matters most to Filipinos.
He assured his administration’s openness to complaints, noting that public support must continually be earned through performance and responsiveness to the public’s needs.
Amid criticisms due to the corruption issues over anomalous flood control projects, Marcos expressed confidence that key sectors of society are supportive of his administration’s advocacies and programs.
“Politics is a very variable, very volatile exercise. And so, what I can say is that we are confident that the important sectors of society, the power centers of society and of the administration are very supportive still of the advocacies of the administration, the programs of the administration,” he said.
“And we will continue to work very hard to make sure that we are doing what the people want. And that’s the most important thing,” he added. (TPM/SunStar Philippines)