“No wonder UP Prof. Cielo Magno, the former undersecretary of the former secretary of Finance, calls the 2025 budget the ‘most corrupt in our history’”
WHAT have you done? The Bicam chaired by Co and Poe “labored,” left their TWGs (technical working groups) to stay awake overnight and craft what is to be submitted to the President as the 2025 national budget.
Congress is mandated by the Constitution to review the National Expenditure Program submitted to it by the President each year.
That NEP, also called “the president’s budget,” is the result of submissions by the different departments of the executive branch after a budget call of the DBM.
The Development Budget Coordinating Committee composed of the economic managers review the DBM-consolidated proposals after a thorough perusal of “expected” revenues versus “necessary” expenditures.
Some observers have noted that the DBM’s role has been “influenced” by certain “smart” operators from Congress who, on account of the Supreme Court’s decision outlawing lump sum “pork barrel,” already submit their “built-in” slabs of fat to DBM ahead of the crafting of the President’s budget, with the department heads having been co-opted.
As we used to say in the seventies, “ayos na ang buto-buto”.
The Constitution assigned to the HoR the initial review of the NEP, which in the present case, was “rushed,” often without reading, maybe because the QuadComm and the Chua-headed accountability committee had to undertake a more important mission, which is to “slaughter” a powerful rival dynasty in Southern Philippines.
Dutifully, the most important aspect of the HoR’s submission to the Senate this year was slashing the presidentially-approved OVP budget from 2 billion to a mere 733 million.
So from Elizaldy Co, the powerful Chair of the Appropriations Committee in the HoR, the proposed 2025 budget was submitted to Grace Poe, the newly-crowned Chair of the Senate Finance Committee.
Despite ministrations of a significant number of fellow senators, the Poe-led committee decided to maintain the HoR “katay” of the OVP budget.
Since the House version was not totally acceptable to the Poe-led committee, especially because in the 2023 budget, the Co-led House counterpart in what is called the third chamber of Congress “sneaked” more pork fat like a “thief in the night,” principally the AKAP ayuda solely for HoR use, the senators made noises about “abolishing” AKAP.
Thus, the Poe-led delegation to the bicameral conference committee had a mandate to lop off AKAP from the ayuda menu of the Ayuda Republic.
The senators even announced that, this year, the bicam would be more transparent, the deliberations “televised” even. Alas, that was just for show! They smiled before the cameras at the opening, and that was it.
Lo and behold, AKAP was not abolished. What happened was that the Senate got 5 billion and the HoR got 21 billion in AKAP ayuda for the “nearly poor,” howsoever they define that. Hating “kapatid” for 2025 plus “bayad-utang” for not having any in 2024.
Bicam’s in the yet “august” and forgotten yesteryears did what our teachers called “Cut and Paste” — snip a little here, transfer a little there.
But in the case of the Co-Poe bicam last week, it wasn’t just cut and paste. It became huge chunks butchered off needed social services and lumped into the DPWH, the old repository of “hard fat,” like Baliwag in Bulacan and Carcar in Cebu transform into chicharon.
But wait! Didn’t the Supreme Court declare pork barrel allocations “unconstitutional” for violating separation of powers, undue delegation of legislative power, etc. in its landmark Belgica vs. Ochoa ruling?
The “legal” though immoral way was to identify the pork and itemize these as early as in the NEP, or through identified amendments in the line agency budgets, which neither the HoR under Co nor the Senate under Poe failed to do, perhaps due to lack of material time.
Bahala na si Batman, este, si Bicam ni Co-Poe. Let them do the magic.
And so this Bicam mountain heaved and labored and brought forth not a mouse, but a hog monstrosity with a belly so huge its legs could hardly support its fat-laden liempo.
Now the poor TWG staff of the bicam, as agreed upon by their leadership, are frenziedly “itemizing” the interstices of fat in the new DPWH super-budget.
Frenziedly. too, are the hurried requests of the “representatives of the people,” whose “contractors,” many their own companies, would have to agree to the 30-40 percent of “E-di” (ako) and “Pa-ti” (ako).
And there is a deadline, now adjusted till Dec. 31 at the latest for the President’s signature.
No wonder UP Prof. Cielo Magno, the former undersecretary of the former secretary of Finance, calls the 2025 budget the “most corrupt in our history.”
Diyos Co-Poe !
This will be my last column article for the year, as I need to rest wearied soul battered by the crazy political strife of the benighted nation. I will resume next year and my first column will be titled “Hopeless.”
