A Batangas congressman has proposed stripping down Congress' own operating budget by ₱14 billion and channeling the savings directly to disaster victims and low-income households — enough, he says, to give every Filipino family either a food pack or a 10-kilogram sack of rice.
Batangas First District Representative Leandro Legarda Leviste filed House Resolution No. 1118 on Sunday, June 15, 2026, during the 20th Congress' Second Regular Session. The measure urges both the House of Representatives and the Senate to reallocate ₱14 billion from their combined Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE) — funds Leviste has repeatedly referred to as legislative "bonuses" — toward social relief and food assistance for Filipino families.
Redirecting Operating Funds, Not Seeking New Appropriations
HR 1118 does not seek additional government spending. Rather, it calls for a redistribution of funds already embedded in the approved 2026 General Appropriations Act, specifically targeting what Leviste described during a press briefing at the House of Representatives as excess and poorly accounted-for portions of the legislative MOOE budget.
According to the resolution, Congress was allocated a combined MOOE of ₱23.89 billion under the 2026 national budget — broken down as ₱18.58 billion for the House of Representatives, ₱4.12 billion for the Senate, and ₱1.19 billion for the Commission on Appointments and the electoral tribunals. Leviste argued that trimming this to roughly ₱10 billion — in line with historical congressional spending — would free up ₱14 billion without impairing core legislative functions.
The resolution notes that the ₱23.89 billion figure represents a 228.61-percent jump over the ₱7.27-billion MOOE recorded in the 2017 national budget, equivalent to a compounded annual growth rate of 14.13 percent over nine years. Leviste contended that even with a ₱14-billion reduction, the remaining ₱9.89 billion would be more than enough to sustain day-to-day legislative operations.
Enough Rice or Food Packs for 28 Million Households
Leviste pegged the cost of a single Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) family food pack or a 10-kilogram sack of rice distributed under the Bawat Bayan Makikinabang program at approximately ₱500. At that rate, the ₱14-billion reallocation would cover roughly 28 million units — approximately one for every Filipino household nationwide.
To drive his point home, Leviste presented sample cheques at the press briefing to illustrate the scale and distribution of MOOE allocations currently flowing to individual lawmakers.
Questions Over 'Break Bonuses' and Certification-Liquidated Disbursements
The resolution raises pointed questions about how House MOOE is currently being disbursed. According to the resolution, after excluding ₱3.31 billion in clearly identified expenditures such as supplies, utilities, and maintenance, the remaining House MOOE for 2026 stands at ₱15.27 billion — an average of ₱48 million per lawmaker across 318 House members.
Leviste said that, based on consultations with the House Committee on Accounts, at least ₱10 billion of the House's MOOE budget goes to what the resolution describes as "unidentified uses." He added that House members receive an average of roughly ₱1 million per month in basic office MOOE — totaling ₱3.82 billion annually across all 318 members — to cover travel, communication, representation, and similar expenses.
Beyond that, Leviste said some members also receive so-called "break bonuses" amounting to ₱2 million per session break, plus additional disbursements described as "liquidated by certification" — a process he said requires no supporting receipts. He emphasized that while legislators have legitimate office and constituency-related costs, these expenses do not need to be released through certification-liquidated cheques, and that a more transparent allocation system would make it harder to justify the extra disbursements as administrative necessities.
Disasters and Inflation Cited as Justification for Urgency
Leviste pointed to a convergence of crises as the backdrop for his resolution. A magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck southern Mindanao on June 8, 2026 — barely a week before the resolution was filed — displacing thousands of residents and intensifying calls for government relief. The resolution also notes that the United Nations' World Risk Report has ranked the Philippines as the world's most disaster-prone country.
Compounding the disaster risk, according to the resolution, is a worsening economic environment: inflation climbed to 7.2 percent in April 2026, driven in part by an ongoing oil crisis that has steadily eroded household purchasing power and deepened food insecurity among vulnerable Filipinos. The resolution also cites the response to recent disasters — including voluntary salary deductions by House members to aid victims of the June 2026 Mindanao earthquake, Typhoons Tino and Uwan, and the 2025 Cebu earthquake — as evidence that Congress already recognizes the need to redirect resources toward disaster relief.
Resolution Also Demands Budget Transparency and Public Hearings
Aside from the proposed ₱14-billion reallocation, HR 1118 calls on the House and Senate accounts committees to release a detailed, itemized public breakdown of how MOOE funds are being spent and how much each individual member receives. The resolution further urges the holding of public hearings on MOOE utilization, and recommends adopting an allocation formula based proportionally on each member's number of constituents — a formula Leviste argues would be more equitable and defensible.
According to the resolution, the findings from those hearings should directly inform reforms to both the 2026 and 2027 national budgets, helping institutionalize stronger financial accountability within Congress itself.
Leviste Has Long Pushed for Legislative Budget Scrutiny
This is not Leviste's first foray into challenging Congress' internal finances. The son of Senator Loren Legarda and former Batangas Governor Antonio Leviste, he has been one of the more vocal critics of legislative budget practices in the House, previously questioning a ₱10.5-billion increase in Congress' internal expenditure budget and alleging the existence of year-end bonuses tied to MOOE disbursements — allegations that some of his colleagues have contested, maintaining that the payments are lawful and properly audited.
As a House resolution, HR 1118 reflects the sense of the lower chamber on the matter and urges institutional action — but does not by itself carry the force of law or mandate changes to the General Appropriations Act. It calls on the internal governance bodies of both chambers to act, leaving implementation to the discretion of congressional leadership.
As of filing time on Sunday, June 15, 2026, no official responses had been issued by the Senate, House leadership, or the House Committee on Accounts. The resolution is expected to be taken up during regular congressional proceedings in the coming weeks.
Source: Originally reported by wire reports