July 2, 2025 l Business Mirror
The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has just recently announced the proposed national budget for next year 2026 in the total amount of P6.793 trillion in public spending; but our inquiries about our current year’s budget have not been answered yet to our satisfaction.
At the bicameral committee that finalizes this budget for presidential approval, there have been misallocation of appropriations, questionable realignment of funds and unjustified additional spending authorizations.
And all this represents stark abuse of legislative power. And all this done with shameless impunity despite all the public outcry against this collective legislative ignominy.
Are we going to have a repeat of this kind of legislative abuse of power? We have not received any response from Congress. (Can we even expect any?) Let us just review the highlights of our complaints as pointed out by business organizations in December last year.
1. The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) was given a whopping P1.1 trillion of appropriations; an increase the department never asked for in the first place.
This DPWH appropriation is higher than the P737 billion for the Department of Education (DepEd), when the Constitution says education should get the highest appropriation.
Of course, we know where the pork barrel opportunities lurk. They’re in public work projects and, please understand, it’s an election year.
2. Our bright Congress concocted the “Ayuda Para sa Kapos sa Kita” program, or “Akap” (hug), in the amount of P26 billion. How this has been distributed we don’t know. Nor has there been a clear justification for this magical program except for our own legislators’ “bleeding hearts for the poor.”
3. And if the poor have an “ayuda,” why not also the Congressmen? The appropriations for Congress were increased by P19 billion.
4. To partly provide for the last-minute adjusted increases in the budget, it was therefore thought to remove P74.43 billion in the subsidy for the Philippine Health Insurance Corp., even as the PhilHealth law says this should not be done.
PhilHealth members need the amount most certainly.
These realignments and financial hocus-pocus all happened at the secretive bicameral committee. And this is the problem. All the deliberations in the bicameral committee, a select small group of members from the House and Senate, are never open to the public. They can, and do, summarily change the budget appropriations decided previously in the House and Senate, in the guise of reconciling budget provisions.
As we enter into another cycle of national budget formulation, legislation and/or implementation, let us not forget the legitimate questions we have raised against abusive legislative power. Let us continue to demand some satisfactory answers to our suspicions and accusations. These are all wasteful spending, and there must be accountability.
Right now, we are all throwing out venom at Vice President Sara Z. Duterte’s alleged criminal use or misuse of confidential funds for which she is now being impeached.
But what is the difference in culpability between the vice president and the bicameral committee in the misuse of public funds? Indeed, what is the difference between the Office of the Vice President and the whole Congress in the wanton waste of public funds?
And the President of the Republic? He had the power to veto but didn’t.
Aren’t we all entitled to feel betrayed? Should we just slide to quiet complacency and let the matter go?
***The views expressed herein are his own and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of his office as well as FINEX. For comments, email santidumlaojr@gmail.com. Photo is from Pinterest.