President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has again defended the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA) this time in front of more than 3,000 lawyers.
In his speech to the 20th National Convention of Lawyers in Cebu, he joked that he would not be defeated by the ability of lawyers who can read hundreds of pages of cases.
The president said he read and reviewed the 4,057 pages of the 2025 GAA, studied the details and vetoed some of the items.
Although he examined more than 4,000 pages of GAA’s 2025, the president said he did not see blank items as his critics alleged.
Marcos is convinced that blank items do not exist because the law does not allow them.
“Up to now I cannot find those damned blank items. We’ll keep looking but I really am convinced that that they simply do not exist because it is not allowed to exist,”. The president said.
Representative Isidro Ungab and Atty. Vic Rodriguez recently filed a petition in the Supreme Court to repeal the 2025 General Appropriations Act alleging that the P6.352 Trillion budget has blank items.
The petitioners described the budget illegal, criminal and unconstitutional.
Abner is an award-winning journalist. He received the prestigious 2015 Titus Brandsma Award for Community Communication in the Philippines and participated in the 2016 International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the United States of America, sponsored by the US Embassy in the Philippines. Founder of WATCH NORTH COTABATO, a media-citizens’ transparency group. He worked as a correspondent for the Philippine Daily Inquirer and CNN Philippines. His experience in broadcasting includes anchoring for Brigada News FM in Kidapawan and General Santos City and Brigada News TV. He anchors Tira Brigada via 105.1 Brigada News FM Manila, Mondays-Saturdays.