By Rodolfo Dacleson II
(February 23, 2025) – The Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) requested the Supreme Court to give a five-day extension on the deadline to comment on the petition challenging the legality of the 2025 national budget.
In a four-page motion, the OSG sought the high court to extend the filing until February 27.
“Although the draft of the said comment has already been finished, it is still undergoing further revision and/or correction before it can be filed,” said solicitor general Menardo Guevarra in the appeal, as quoted by BusinessWorld.
It furthered that they received the order on February 12, which gave them until February 22 to submit a comment.
“The instant motion is not intended to delay the proceedings but solely due to the foregoing reasons,” added Guevara, who will answer the petition on behalf of the administration of Pres. Bongbong Marcos Jr.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court ordered the Malacañang and the Congress to submit the original copies of the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA) and its enrolled bill ahead of the preliminary conference on the case on February 28. The oral argument is scheduled for April 1.
In January, Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab and Marcos’ former executive secretary, Vic Rodriguez, among six petitioners, urged the high court to declare the 2025 GAA unconstitutional due to blank items in the bicameral committee report.
Marcos dismissed the case as a “destabilization” attempt against his government, claiming that he did not find blank items in the over 4,000-page expenditure plan after reviewing it.
ALSO READ: Petition against 2025 national budget a ‘destabilization’ attempt, claims Marcos
Marikina Rep. Stella Quimbo, who chairs the committee on appropriations, admitted the existence of blank items but stressed that funding sources had already been identified before the bicameral committee report was approved.
Quimbo and House Speaker Martin Romualdez, the cousin of Marcos, among four lawmakers in the lower chamber, are facing graft complaints over the alleged illegal insertions worth P241 billion in the 2025 GAA.
(PM)
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