'We shut down everything', Marcos says if SC rules vs 2025 budget

MANILA, Philippines — The government will “shut down everything” if the Supreme Court rules in favor of petitioners challenging the constitutionality of the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA), President Ferdinand "Bongbong" R. Marcos Jr. said in Cebu City on Thursday.

“No, we shut down everything. I guess that’s what they want. They want the government to cease working. so ‘yung matuloy ‘yung kanilang mga destabilization na ginagawa (so that their destabilization efforts will succeed),” Marcos  said.

Last Tuesday, Davao Rep. Isidro Ungab, former executive secretary Vic Rodriguez, and other petitioners raised several violations of the Constitution with the approval of the 2025 budget, including the supposed blank items in the bicameral conference committee report of the spending plan.

Named as respondents in the petition were the House of Representatives, headed by Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez; the Senate of the Philippines, represented by Senate President Francis Escudero; and Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin.

But in an ambush interview on Thursday, Marcos said that the government has a “solid footing in terms of constitutionality” of the GAA.

“Well, the SolGen [Solicitor General Menardo Guevarra], of course, will be the one who will argue for the government, and he tells me—SolGen Menardo—that we are on a solid footing in terms of constitutionality,” he explained.

(2025/01/30-16:32)