SENATOR Juan Edgardo Angara on Friday promised that the Senate Committee on Finance will work to increase the budgets for education and health for 2024.

Angara, who heads the Committee on Finance that is scrutinizing the proposed P5.768 trillion national budget for 2024, dismissed concerns on the reduction in the proposed 2024 budget of the University of the Philippines system because “this will be rectified and increased by the time December comes and we’ve been through the budgetary process.”

“For three straight years we have seen increases in the budgets of the SUCs. From P73.7 billion in 2020, this went up to P85.9 billion in 2021, P104.17 billion in 2022 and P107 billion in 2023. Similar to the health sector, we also expect increases in the budgets of the SUCs and UP once Congress is done deliberating on the 2024 NEP,” he said.

Looking at the 2024 National Expenditure Program or the national budget as proposed by Malacañang, Angara said there will be reductions in the budgets of some departments and agencies because of the removal of non-recurring expenses.

“These include infrastructure projects that are already implemented in the current year so the amounts for these are removed for next year’s budget proposals,” he said.

In the health sector, Angara stressed that Congress has consistently increased the budget for specialty hospitals and even the Medical Assistance for Indigent Patients.

“The increases in the budgets of the specialty hospitals, the MAIP and the health sector in general would benefit millions of Filipinos, especially the poor, for their medical and health care requirements. The budget for MAIP has increased annually from P9.4 billion in 2019 to P10.5 billion in 2020, P17 billion in 2021, P21.4 billion in 2022, and P32.6 billion in 2023. We expect a similar increase in the program in the final version of the 2024 budget,” Angara said.