“Everybody has to be happy, COA and ‘mavens’ included, as long as the legislators get the biggest slice of the stinking pie, as Ping Lacson and Benjie Magalong have been claiming”
Back in the 80s, former senator and budget commissioner, Dominador R. Aytona explained to this writer, then a young opposition worker assigned by Ninoy Aquino to assist Doy Laurel in forming the UNIDO, that the national budget “is the country’s economic program in pesos and centavos.”
He was describing an era when Congress before martial law was composed of two parties, the Nacionalista and the Liberal, who took turns at political power. It was a time when the Senate was truly “august,” looked up to by Filipinos as a center of political excellence, 24 “republics” under two flags with one or two independents, almost all of whom were learned professionals in their field of expertise, mostly the law.
Even the so-called “lower House” in the majestic Legislative Building fronting the Muralla were winnowed grain from political chaff in their districts by the two parties, men and women who were distinguished by education, experience and character, but for some warlords here and there.
Compare that to our present Congress, and weep.
Senator Aytona was describing a time when the Budget Commission under the Office of the President cobbled together a National Expenditure Program, proudly called “the President’s budget” after high level consultations with Cabinet and the National Economic Council, which became NEDA under Ferdinand I and now DepDev under Ferdinand II. The NEP then was consistent with our strategy to grow the economy and husband our meager resources.
That “President’s budget” was fiercely defended by the majority party in the halls of both houses which had their own congressional economic planning offices headed by academicians mostly coming from the State university, with minority party members studiously poring through the submissions of each department.
Sure, there was “pork barrel,” a practice common in most legislatures around the world, which in the US of A they call “earmarks,” but back then, the slices of pork were bacon-thin, unlike these days when the favored few get the entire “liempo,” and the not so favored get chunks similar to the Chinese “dong pou ro,” or “hong-ba” in Fujian, “humba” which Harry Roque and some DDS quarreled over in Den Haag.
The flood control affliction that has caused the loss of lives and destroyed properties is caused by what amounts to a swine epidemic, so widespread in the last three years.
On Dec. 30, 2024, the GAA amounting to 6.326 trillion was signed by our president after squirming over the “bawas-dagdag,” “himala” by the Houdini’s in the four-man “small” committee of the HoR and the bicameral Co and Poe-led bicam, and transfers to unprogrammed appropriations that have been ear-marked by a handful.
That small committee was done in previous congresses because individual amendments in plenary would take too much time, but previous committees were not a quadcom as the Co-Quimbo-Dalipe and Libanan combo, the last being the head of the “company union.”
Recall what the new Congress after martial rule approved for 1989. The total — 228.9 billion, of which 108 billion went into debt payments owing to the legacy debt inherited from Ferdinand I. Now compare that to the NEP submitted for 2026, a whopping 6.793 trillion, almost 30 times bigger!
1989 population was 61 million; next year, around 117 million. While population as metric for expenditure may be simplistic, a budget 30 times bigger is awesome when compared to the needs of a population that has less than doubled.
Bacon then was 30 million each, then 50 apiece in Erap’s time with senators getting 70 million. Nowadays, it’s in the billions for the favored; half a billion each for lesser mortals.
Though “consultations” have been made with DPWH officials from district engineers up, then submitted to the DBM for crafting the NEP, “pahabol” in the billions are made in the GAB via the small committee and the bicam.
While the DPWH secretary has the power to appoint and reshuffle his district engineers, woe unto him if he does that without the nihil obstat of the district congressman.
With authorized contract limit of 150 million (which used to be 50 million under Babes Singson in PNoy’s time) some district engineers chop-chop flood control projects into 149 million-peso “humba.” Blinded by greed, they are not even creative enough, such that the chunks are uniformly 149 million.
Everybody has to be happy, COA and “mavens” included, as long as the legislators get the biggest slice of the stinking pie, as Ping Lacson and Benjie Magalong have been claiming.
Hindi na bumubukol, per whistleblower Jun Lozada. Lumobo, while lives are sacrificed, and the economy is held hostage.
