Sen. Panfilo "Ping" Lacson on Thursday pushed for a bigger slice of revenues generated from the income-generating activities of the Department of Justice (DoJ) and its attached agencies.
During the Senate finance committee hearing on the proposed 2027 budget of the DoJ and its attached agencies, Lacson said that while the "DoJ family" remitted some P18.715 billion from income-generating activities to the national treasury for 2025, only P262.778 million was released back to the department.
"We want to find out so we can make some adjustments. The Department suffered a huge cut so at least on this aspect we want to support it," Lacson said.
He cited the case of the Land Registration Authority (LRA), which was allocated only 15 percent of its remittances in the National Expenditure Program (NEP) for 2027, although it should have retained 20 percent.
The LRA remitted P11.444 billion to the Treasury in 2025 and was supposed to receive 20 percent of this amount for 2027.
The 20-percent share would amount to about P2.289 billion, but the 2027 NEP provided only about P1.78 billion for the LRA.
"So short by five percent? That's a violation of the law," Lacson said after learning of the five-percent reduction from LRA Administrator Gerardo Sirios.
The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), meanwhile, remitted P855 million from processing clearance fees in 2025.
NBI Director Melvin Matibag said the NBI is entitled to 30 percent of its earnings under the NBI Modernization Act, but the amount it receives is capped at P150 million annually.