The proposed travel budget for the Office of the President for 2025 has been reduced by eight percent, amounting to P1.054 billion, down from P1.148 billion allocated in the 2024 General Appropriations Act, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) said.
“It’s a decrease of 94 million or eight percent compared to the 1.148 billion appropriated in the 2024 General Appropriations Act; it’s gone down by eight percent,” DBM Secretary Amenah Pangandaman said during a Palace briefing on Thursday.
Despite the budget cut, Pangandaman said the government would continue its efforts to promote the Philippines as an investment destination, which will continue unabated.
“We’re still going out there, basically marketing the Philippines as a great place to invest (in)—and that’s ongoing,” Pangandaman said.
“Meanwhile, some others have already signed memorandums of understanding and agreements with our President, but we still need to follow up on these to ensure that the investments we’ve gathered over the past years come through,” she added.
From January to May of this year, President Marcos has traveled out of the country eight times.
President Marcos visited Brunei and Vietnam in January, followed by a state visit to Australia in Canberra last February.
In March, he returned to Australia for the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit before heading to Central Europe for a working visit in Germany and a state visit to the Czech Republic.
In April, President Marcos traveled to Washington D.C. for the first trilateral summit with Japan and the United States, and in May, he embarked on a back-to-back visit to Brunei and Singapore.
