No ‘AKAP’ funding in 2026 budget proposal - DBM

Metro Manila, Philippines - There will be no funding next year for a targeted social assistance program because of limited resources and unspent budget, a Cabinet official said.

Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman announced on Wednesday, Aug. 13, that there is no allocation for the Ayuda para sa Kapos ang Kita Program (AKAP) in the 2026 National Expenditure Program submitted to Congress on Wednesday, Aug. 14.

“May natitira pang pondo for 2025,” Pangandaman said in a news briefing.

“We received a total of P10 trillion in proposals from agencies and given our limited fiscal space hindi pa po muna natin siya sinama,” she added.

[Translation: There are still funds for 2025. We received a total of P10 trillion in budget proposals from agencies and given our limited fiscal space, we did not include the funding for AKAP.]

The final budget of expenditures ended up at P6.7 trillion, a spending plan that will be deliberated by lawmakers beginning this month.

Funding for AKAP, a pet project of House Speaker Martin Romualdez, was among the contentious provisions in the 2025 budget.

In the budget deliberations, the House initially allocated P39 billion for the program, but the Senate scrapped the item. Senators were eventually convinced in the bicameral conference committee to restore the program with a lower amount: P26 billion. 

AKAP is under the Department of Social Welfare and Development, which provides financial aid to minimum wage earners and near-poor Filipinos affected by higher inflation.