Non-essential govt spending cuts to stay, ‘crisis or no crisis’

BUDGET authorities plan to continue trimming non-essential government operating expenses even after the country’s current economic troubles ease to improve spending efficiency and generate savings.

Budget Assistant Secretary Romeo Matthew Balanquit said the government’s ongoing effort to reduce non-essential maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE) should not be viewed merely as a temporary response to the shock caused by the war in the Middle East.

“We think we’ll be doing that with crisis or without crisis,” Balanquit told reporters on Friday.

“I think that’s a cleansing effort that we will be doing at the DBM (Department of Budget and Management). It’s just that it was really initiated because of the crisis event.”

Budget Secretary Kim Robert de Leon has said the government must take a harder look at operating expenditures that have long been carried forward through routine budget adjustments. He called for a review of all MOOE items and pushed for a results-oriented approach to public spending.

Under the proposed budget for next year, MOOE has been slashed to P2.94 trillion from 2026’s P2.98 trillion.

Financial assistance and subsidy spending was programmed at P2.13 trillion, down from the P2.18 trillion this year. This accounts roughly 72 percent of the entire MOOE allocation for 2026.

Confidential and intelligence expenses were also slashed to P4.36 billion and P6.4 billion, while donations were markedly lowered to P46.33 billion from P60.1 billion.

Balanquit said spending restraint was part of the government’s broader effort to create fiscal space and ensure that limited public resources were directed toward priority programs.

The DBM earlier said that it was implementing a 20-percent reduction in non-essential government spending as part of the government’s response to the global oil crisis.

The agency estimated that the measure could generate between P12.8 billion and P25.6 billion in savings from March to December 2026, depending on agencies’ compliance.