SEN. Sherwin Gatchalian on Wednesday said a long-standing corruption loophole in the national budget has been plugged following the removal of the Strengthening Assistance for Government Infrastructure and Social Programs (Sagip) from the proposed 2026 General Appropriations Act, as approved by the Bicameral Conference Committee. Gatchalian, chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, said Sagip was previously lodged under Unprogrammed Appropriations (UA) and contained large lump-sum allocations for infrastructure and social projects, including flood control, which had been linked to corruption controversies in recent years. “Unprogrammed Appropriations have many parts, and Sagip is one of them. This is where lump-sum funds, such as for flood control projects, were previously placed, which became the root of corruption investigations. This is what we said we would remove, and we have removed it in the 2026 budget,” Gatchalian said in Filipino. “So with the new form of Unprogrammed Appropriations, there is no longer any source of corruption,” he said. Sagip previously carried massive allocations: more than P50 billion in 2023, P225 billion in 2024, and P160 billion in 2025. In 2024, flood control projects amounting to P86.93 billion were placed under Sagip, drawing public scrutiny amid investigations into alleged misuse of funds and so-called “insertions” in the budget. In the proposed 2026 budget, Sagip has been completely removed, and infrastructure projects are required to be itemized and placed under regular programmed appropriations, subject to clearer planning, oversight, and accountability mechanisms. Gatchalian said the remaining components of the Unprogrammed Appropriations are limited to items that are genuinely contingent and unforeseen, such as foreign-assisted projects that still require counterpart funding from the Government of the Philippines (GOP). “This is actually included in Unprogrammed Appropriations because there are still projects for which negotiations are ongoing and others for which no contracts have been signed yet,” he said. “These projects are not certain to push through, and it is not fiscally prudent to put them under Programmed Funds because they are tentative obligations of the government,” Gatchalian said. Other items retained under the Unprogrammed Appropriations include additional funding for the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Modernization Program, which may be released only if excess revenues or new financing sources materialize. Gatchalian said the changes reflect the Senate’s push for greater transparency and fiscal discipline, particularly after years of concern over the use of lump-sum funds that are vulnerable to abuse.