TOKYO – President Ferdinand Marcos Jr on Monday said that he considered the removal of the confidential funds for the offices of Vice President Sara Duterte a “settled issue”, following his confirmation that he would signing the national budget on Wednesday, Dec. 20.

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Speaking to reporters in Tokyo, Japan, Marcos said it was not him who insisted on the removal of said funds for next year.

“Well, that was actually the initiative of the Vice President. Again, I am not talking about the confidential funds and to not insist that they have such confidential funds. So, I think as far as I am concerned, it is a settled issue,” he said.

Duterte earlier requested to be given a total of P650-million in confidential funds for the Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education (DepEd) for 2024.

She later dropped the bid, noting that the issue of confidential funds had become ‘divisive’ and asked Congress to instead realign some of the requested funds to learning recovery programs of DepEd.

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• Duterte drops request for confidential funds

Meanwhile, Marcos noted that while there seems to be a “differential” between the appropriated funds in the proposed 2024 budget and the actual funds collected by government, he remained “comfortable with the way the budget has turned out.”

“The budget, I think, very closely follows what our original NEP was,” he said.

“So, there is a certain amount that we now have extra, that we now have to collect. But I am confident in that because we are changing the system in [Bureau of] Customs. The BIR has been very efficient at making the collections. But we are still providing new initiatives to make businesses easier and also to increase our collection,” he said.

“We just have to do the work over the years to make sure that they will cover the differential between the actual appropriated funds and the unappropriated funds that have been appropriated by Congress,” he added.

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DEFENSE BUDGET

Asked if the 2024 budget for the country’s defense will be sufficient to cover the necessary steps to address the issue on the West Philippine Sea, Marcos admitted that it won’t be enough.

“Even if we go up to the desired level of spending on defense, of up to 2% of GDP, we will still be very not comparative of actual military force to the Chinese. I think that is obvious to everyone,” he explained.

What the country can do to support our defense, Marcos said, is to forge alliances with other nations to boost our capability.

“We have to again continue, as I mentioned before, to align ourselves with as many countries around the world, especially in Asia, in the Indo-Pacific area, but around the world. And the key to be able to speak with a unified voice is essential, and that will only come with strong coalitions between different countries, amongst different countries,” he said.

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