Climate finance is not just about quantity; it is also about the quality.
In the case of the Philippines’ domestic public finance, it is lacking both.
The 2026 national climate budget, or the part of the annual general appropriations tagged to be aligned with national climate objectives, was formally set at P648.7 billion. This seems like a massive decline from 2025’s funding set at P1.15 trillion — except too much of it was tagged for flood control projects that turned out to be corrupted.
Yet this figure comprises only 9.6% of the overall 2026 national budget, much lower than 18.2% from the year before. This is an indicator that the climate agenda, once declared as a priority at the start of the current administration, has decreased in importance — an unfortunate casualty of corruption.
What is more startling is that the P648.7-billion number is actually overestimated.
