PRESIDENT Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has received the ratified bicameral conference committee report on the 2026 General Appropriations Bill and will now conduct a thorough review to ensure its integrity and effective execution, Malacañang said on Tuesday. “The president and his team are scrutinizing all allocations and provisions to fully account for any changes from the originally submitted National Expenditure Program,” Executive Secretary Ralph Recto said in a statement. “We will ensure that the 2026 GAA (General Appropriations Act) will satisfy not only the legal and technical requirements but, more importantly, the needs of the Filipino people. This review is expected to take about a week,” he added. While the review of next year’s budget is underway, the government will operate under a reenacted budget for the first few days of 2026. This would be the first time under Marcos’ watch that it has to be reenacted. Recto assured the public this “will not disrupt government operations.” He earlier confirmed Marcos will sign the GAA in the first week of January. The Palace also previously noted there will be no holiday break for the chief executive to ensure the thorough review of the budget. “This deliberate review safeguards fiscal discipline and ensures that taxpayers’ hard-earned money is spent wisely and translated into benefits for the Filipino people,” Recto said. The 2026 spending bill comes as the government is embroiled in one of the worst corruption scandals, with billions of pesos allegedly pocketed by lawmakers and government officials in collusion with private entities and individuals through kickbacks from anomalous flood control projects under the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH). Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri asked Malacañang to provide the same “commitment to transparency” that the Senate has shown in spending taxpayers’ money. The senator on Tuesday said the Senate ratified the P6.793-trillion general appropriations bill for 2026 after a process conducted in full view of the public with “no midnight insertions.” “This transparency standard now applies to appropriations, special purpose funds and all spending measures that we will pass in the future,” Zubiri said in a statement. “The ball now shifts to the executive [branch] to implement it with the same daylight the Senate showed while we keep watch on delivery,” he said. “We will continue oversight of the national budget spending. We will defend it, improve it and make sure public funds really work for Filipino families,” he added. Zubiri said from the first briefing to the last gavel, proceedings were open. “Livestreams stayed up, side-by-side matrices were posted and every movement in the numbers carried authorship and explanation so people could watch, read and verify without insider access.” He said the 2026 budget bill has no “for-later-identification, and no [budget] item without clear program of work, location with exact coordinates at timeline.” Zubiri said he hoped the succeeding congresses would apply the same transparency in crafting the yearly national budget. “This should be the new normal for the budget process.” “We kept a hard verification step before ratification. We would not sign if the [figures in the bicameral] conference report and enrolled copy do not match,” Zubiri said. The Senate and House of Representatives on Sunday signed the bicameral conference committee report that reconciled differences in the two chambers’ version of the budget bill. Both houses ratified the same report on Monday. Zubiri said amendments to the proposed national budget can be good for the people if the project costs are right and complete with documents, including barangay (village) and municipal resolutions.