Wanted: an honest and transparent national budget

“The past decade (2016-2025) stands as one of the most corruption-ridden periods in Philippine history, with an estimated P8.8 trillion lost to graft, ghost projects, and elite capture — an amount that eclipses the entire 2026 national budget,” said University of the Philippines professor and scientist Dr. Teodoro C. Bautista.

“This hemorrhage has not only drained public coffers but has also fueled the country’s ballooning debt, projected to reach P19.143 trillion by the end of 2025, with a debt-to-GDP ratio of 63% ” (Mendoza, 2025; Malindog-Uy, 2025).

At the Nov. 6 launch of Ateneo de Manila University School of Law’s continuing legal education series, “On the Sounding Board,” the first session was, “The Accountability Imperative — whither the Rule of Law?”

The keynote speaker was Florencio B. Abad, a former secretary of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), who talked about the potential for corruption within the national budget process and the need for reforms.

Mr. Abad discussed how, despite safeguards, systemic weaknesses and bypassed procedures have allowed irregularities to occur. He compared the unprecedented number of fund realignments in the current administration to those of previous years, emphasizing that the issue is not merely fiscal but also ethical and institutional, as it reflects failures of public accountability.

The first three budgets of President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr.’s administration — 2023, 2024, and 2025 — defied the norms of budgeting, Mr. Abad said in his presentation at the Ateneo forum. Cuts in the General Appropriations Budget (GAB) in those budget years cumulated in P1.421 trillion (net of vetoes), Mr. Abad showed in his slides. In the 2024 GAB, the P564.5 billion in cuts were inserted into flood control projects, which already had P244.6 billion appropriated for them in the budget, which was bigger than the budgets for agriculture and education, he pointed out in his talk.

The 2025 GAB cuts of P487.5 billion transfigured into insertions for the Office of the President, the House of Representatives and Senate, and an additional P94.34 billion for the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), after P288 million was vetoed, Mr. Abad showed in his presentation.

In a research paper, Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS) Senior Research Fellow Adoracion M. Navarro and former research analyst Jokkaz S. Latigar pointed out that congressional insertions are replacement projects that are brought in through “political intervention” when the budget is being finalized.

“Unfortunately,” they said, “these projects have not gone through due diligence such as thorough planning and consultation with stakeholders.

“The issue regarding the ‘For Later Release’ funds is complex and has deep political economy ramifications. It seems to be a battle of wills on project implementation between two major political forces,” Messrs. Navarro and Latigar said.

“On one end are legislators who always find ways to insert new or expanded line items into the budget. On the other end is the President, who can resort to post-GAA (General Appropriations Act) procedures that enable him to approve/reject the release of funds related to every Congressional insertion,” they added.

They said these congressional insertions are composed largely of road transport projects. Since these did not go through due diligence, some become unfeasible projects that can create a bottleneck and delay project implementation (pids.gov.ph, June 2, 2025).

Edilberto C. de Jesus, former Secretary of Education (2002-2004), said in an opinion piece in Rappler last January: “As a critical governance tool to guide national development, the budget and how it is determined and deployed often serve as a political weapon. The congressional quad committee had valid reasons to scrutinize Vice-President and then-education secretary Sara Duterte’s appropriation and use of confidential funds.

“This did not deter Duterte followers from dismissing its investigation as politically motivated. The tables turned when the 2025 budget came under fire. The Dutertes quickly tried to recover lost ground by trying to take a leadership role in the cause of budget reform they had resisted,” Mr. De Jesus pointed out.

Rappler columnist J.C. Punongbayan had reported earlier about the “fill in the blanks” anomaly in the 2025 Budget, which the public was alerted to by former president Rodrigo Duterte and Representative Isidro Ungab of Davao City’s 3rd District. The bicameral conference committee report contained blanks in the agriculture sector’s budget, but in the final version of the General Appropriations Act, “as if by magic,” this specific blank was filled by the amount “P1,026,404,000.”

“Lawmakers who convened the bicam were Representative Elizaldy ‘Zaldy’ Co (Ako-Bicol Party list) and Senator Grace Poe. Maybe they should be the ones grilled for the budget magic that happened,” Mr. Punongbayan commented. Former appropriations committee chairperson Zaldy Co is facing accusations from contractors and DPWH officials that he was behind billions of budget amendments in 2025 for his alleged personal gain, GMA News noted in its Oct. 7 reportage.

“It was Senate President Pro Tempore Panfilo ‘Ping’ Lacson who disclosed that ‘almost all’ the senators of the 19th Congress inserted at least P100 billion worth of items in the 2025 GAA, noting that such were individual insertions and were held ‘For Later Release,’” the news report added. The controversial flood control projects were most likely anomalously funded from insertions in the GAB.

The House of Representatives, on Oct. 13, passed on final reading the proposed P6.793-trillion national budget for 2026, concluding 62 days of deliberations marked by heightened scrutiny over a widening corruption scandal involving flood control projects, BusinessWorld announced.

The majority (287) congressmen approved the revised budget bill that rechanneled the bulk of funding from numerous flood control projects under the DPWH to priority sectors such as education, in a move aimed at strengthening human capital development. The 2026 spending plan, which was 7.4% higher than this year’s national budget, saw a select committee of lawmakers redirecting P201.1 billion or 78.86% of the P255 billion worth of funding originally intended for flood control infrastructure, primarily towards education, food, and healthcare sectors, the news said.

“This budget cycle is unprecedented,” said Nueva Ecija Rep. Mikaela Angela B. Suansing, who heads the House Appropriations Committee. “We needed to navigate through complexities while implementing sweeping reforms in long-standing budget processes and traditions” (BusinessWorld, Oct. 14).

Lawmakers deliberated on House Bill No. 4058 or the 2026 General Appropriations Act against the backdrop of the multibillion-peso flood control controversy, drawing in closer-than-normal scrutiny amid calls to make the budget process more transparent. At the same time, the lower chamber scrapped P35 billion in unprogrammed appropriations intended for infrastructure programs, leaving only P45 billion out of the P80 billion originally allocated under the budget bill, it was reported.

“Congress has removed infrastructure from the list of allowable uses for unprogrammed appropriations… a move aimed at preventing potential misuse of these funds,” said Ms. Suansing. She said foreign-funded infrastructure projects would only be eligible for standby funding, since the government must provide counterpart funding to support them. “We cannot remove unprogrammed funding under foreign assisted projects because we cannot turn on our agreements at the international level,” she added.

The Akbayan Reform Bloc voted against the 2026 General Appropriations Bill, citing the persistence of unprogrammed funds and the lack of prioritization for social services and marginalized sectors. The bloc said the 2026 budget fails to uphold transparency, fairness, and accountability (akbayan.org.ph, Oct. 13).

Akbayan Representative Chel Diokno said, “Our decision came down to three simple questions: Does the 2026 Budget support the future of our youth? Does it uplift the lives of our people? And does it end the culture of corruption?”

Diokno emphasized that the inclusion of massive unprogrammed appropriations weakens congressional oversight. “There are still Unprogrammed Appropriations, P243 billion just given to the Executive even if it is not clear how this will be used, or where this will go. It seems that we have turned our backs on our responsibility to guard the money of the people, if with the 2026 General Appropriations Bill, the door is still open to corruption,” he said in Filipino.

The budget bill still needs the Senate’s approval before going to the bicameral conference committee where conflicting provisions of both House and Senate versions will be reconciled. Once the final budget bill is ratified by Congress, it will be transmitted to Malacañang for signing by the President.

In his fourth State of the Nation Address (SONA), President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. made an “unprecedented” declaration that the government is prepared to operate under a reenacted budget in 2026 as he warned that he will veto a proposed budget bill that will not be in harmony with his administration’s programs and priorities.

The DBM defines a reenacted budget as “a situation where the previous year’s GAA is extended and remains in effect for a preceding year until such time Congress passes a budget bill into law.” At the Ateneo Law forum, Mr. Abad warned about reenacted budgets, noting that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, in her term, had reenacted budgets that gave her the freedom to decide on the allocation of funds.

Fact-checking with GMA News online confirmed that “when Congress adjourned on June 8, 2006, without passing the long-delayed General Appropriations Act, the lawmakers’ failure accorded President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo power to realign some funds in a reenacted budget, the third in as many years. The Senate and House of Representatives ended up deadlocked on what to do with P64-billion proposed cuts in the P1.05-trillion budget. At the meeting of the bicameral conference committee, the senators remained adamant in keeping the cuts, including P26 billion that they said would be Mrs. Arroyo’s ‘pork barrel’ funds, as well as funding for agencies embroiled in controversies such as the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) and the National Printing Office.”

The Filipino people deserve an honest and transparent national budget that respects and preserves their hard-earned money.

Pablo Virgilio S. Cardinal “Ambo” David, D.D., Bishop of Kalookan and President of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), in his CLTV36 News Post of Oct. 6, called on “all public officials to uphold the integrity of the ongoing inquiries into the flood control corruption scandal. The Independent Commission on Infrastructure (ICI’s) mandate must include: transparency in its proceedings, findings, and recommendations; access to all necessary documents and witnesses, including those protected by political privilege; public disclosure of budget insertions and project allocations, especially those tied to unprogrammed or duplicate DPWH projects; and protection for whistleblowers and technical personnel who come forward in good faith.”

“Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known. Therefore, whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light.” — Luke 12:2-3

Amelia H.C. Ylagan is a Doctor of Business Administration from the University of the Philippines.