Davao City Third District Rep. Isidro Ungab has spotted an alleged new anomaly in the 2025 national budget.
In his statement, the congressman specifically referred to the changes in the Special Accounts in the General Fund (SAGF) and Use of Income in the General Fund (UIGF).
The SAGF are funds set aside for specific purposes, such as the calamity fund, motor vehicle user’s charge, or energy development fund, while the UIGF is the income of government agencies from fees or permits that they can use in their own operations without having to go through a new budget approval.
“In my 15 years serving in Congress, this marks the first time that items under Automatic Appropriations have been amended by a Bicameral Conference committee,” Ungab stated.
“These unprecedented changes raise serious constitutional questions and have profound implications for government operations and the welfare of every Filipino,” he added.
Ungab explained that automatic appropriations, unlike the annually legislated New General Appropriations Act (GAA), are funds authorized by existing laws that do not require yearly congressional approval.
He said both SAGF and UIGF fall under this protected category, making the Bicam committee’s alleged alterations a potential breach of established budgetary procedures and constitutional provisions.
Ungab said he will tackle this in a privilege speech scheduled for the House plenary session on Monday, August 4, 2025.
Ungab, who formerly chaired the House Committee on Appropriations, and Ways and Means, said he will present a detailed analysis of specific alterations made to SAGF and UIGF allocations appropriations, constitutional and legal implications of modifying automatic appropriations, potential impact on essential government services and programs, and recommendations for corrective legislative action.
In January this year, Ungab bared that the GAA 2025 was anomalous and showed documents and revealed that some figures in the Bicam report were missing like in the agricultural and fisheries modernization program of the Department of Agriculture (DA) wherein the budget for the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) and the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) were not indicated.
Ungab added that the omission of budget items in an official document as significant as the national budget, spanning multiple blank entries across many pages, goes beyond what can reasonably be attributed to typing mistakes.
