Iloilo City proposes PHP 4.5 billion 2026 budget

By Rjay Zuriaga Castor

The city government of Iloilo has proposed a PHP 4.5 billion budget for 2026, which is a PHP 357 million increase from the 2025 approved budget.

According to budget documents submitted to the City Council, the proposed PHP 4,500,155,348 budget is 8.62% higher than the PHP 4,143,175,216 approved for 2025.

Councilor Rex Marcus Sarabia, chairperson of the Committee on Appropriations, said the review process will be exhaustive and more transparent this year amid growing public concern over corruption and misuse of public funds.

“We will thoroughly investigate and examine the proposed budget. We will also give the opposition a chance to raise their manifestations. This will be a very long hearing,” he said on Wednesday.

Though the budget increased, Sarabia said it is a “very slow” increase, or a “comparative slowdown,” compared with the PHP 500–700 million increases in past budgets.

Sarabia also admitted that the City Council would have a hard time managing the budget due to the extended discounts on real property taxes and the city government’s expansion of services.

The Local Finance Committee said that in the proposed budget, 55.13% will come from local sources, while 44.87% will be sourced externally, primarily from the National Tax Allotment, and the city’s tax revenues are projected to grow by 2.72% next year.

By expense class, the proposed budget is distributed as follows:

• 39.92% – Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE)
• 29.98% – Personal Services (PS)
• 17.15% – Special Purpose Appropriations (SPA)
• 10.31% – Capital Outlay
• 3.24% – Financial Expenses

By sectoral allocation:

• 43.84% – General Public Services
• 27.09% – Social Services
• 17.66% – Economic Services
• 11.41% – Other services

“While allocations for social services have been increased, a greater portion of expenses still accrue to the General Public Services because more programs, projects, and activities necessarily translate to more operating expenses and PS requirement for its implementation,” Iloilo City Mayor Raisa Treñas-Chu said.

For the Special Account of the General Fund, which covers local economic enterprises such as public markets and slaughterhouses, the city targets PHP 83,967,794 in revenues.

The projection is only slightly higher than this year’s estimate due to the ongoing rehabilitation of major public markets.

“This projection is minimally higher than the current year’s estimate. This can be on account of the fact that we are simultaneously rehabilitating our market structures and collections are estimated at status quo except for the La Paz Market,” said Treñas-Chu.

The National Tax Allotment, formerly known as the Internal Revenue Allotment, is the local share of national taxes that helps fund city operations and services.