MANILA — Senator Imee Marcos on Sunday rejected claims that she had a ₱2.5-billion budget “wishlist,” saying the projects flagged by Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson were never funded and were merely proposals submitted to the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).
Lacson earlier raised concerns over what he described as ₱2.5-billion worth of “allocables” linked to Marcos in the 2025 National Expenditure Program (NEP), citing documents he said came from the camp of the late DPWH undersecretary Maria Catalina Cabral.
In a statement, Marcos said the items in question were classified as “for later release” (FLR), meaning no funds were actually disbursed.
“He doesn’t know that all of those were just wishlist items submitted to the DPWH Central Office. Is he clueless that those of us in the opposition are all FLR or ‘for later release,’ so nothing was released, zero, including for Bong Go, Bato, and Robin,” Marcos said in Filipino.
Lacson also questioned why Marcos criticized the proposed 2026 national budget when several of her alleged allocables for 2025 were supposedly released.
Marcos denied this, saying she had no power to decide which projects would receive funding and no influence over the administration’s budget priorities.
“I have no idea about the administration’s allocables. Between the two of us, I’m not the lawyer for Malacañang. Senator Ping seems too eager to go after me; we might end up in a hair-pulling match, and I’d definitely lose that fight,” Marcos quipped.