After BBM’s cosmetic veto, budget still crookedest ever

“Veto” was a brand of underarm cream in the 1960s. President Bongbong Marcos’ partial veto of the 2025 budget attempts to deodorize.

But the stink lingers because BBM didn’t veto Congress’ illegal insertions. It remains the crookedest budget in history, UP economics Prof. Cielo Magno laments.

BBM is complicit in plunder for retaining these pork barrels:

• House of Reps’ last-minute addition of P17.37 billion to its approved P16.3 billion. Thus, more than doubling it to P33.67 billion;

• Senate’s own addition of P1.1 billion, also without public hearings, to its original P12.8 billion, making it P13.9 billion;

• Ayuda sa Kapos Ang Kita Program, P26 billion for vote-buying by BBM’s political dynastic allies during the 2025 election campaign;

BBM made a show of vetoing only two items:

(1) P26 billion in ghost flood works, to feign constitutionality.

Congress’ bicameral conference of two had added P288 billion to DPWH’s P825 billion, bloating it to P1.113 trillion. It slashed DepEd, CHED, TESDA, state universities and colleges to P913 billion.

That violated the Constitution’s Article XIV, Section 5 which requires highest budgetary priority for education.

No problem, BBM resorted to what economist JC Punongbayan, PhD, calls “grand dagdag-bawas.”

He moved DPWH’s P15-billion school construction to DepEd. Then, aside from DepEd-CHED-TESDA-SUCs, he grouped under Education agencies with the names “academy,” “college,” “institute:”

Philippine National Police Academy, Philippine Military Academy, Local Government Academy, Philippine Public Safety College, National Defense College of the Philippines, Philippine Science High School System and Science Education Institute.

Farcical, because PNPA and PMA aren’t basic education but police and military officership schools under DILG and DND. Cadets are salaried.

LGA, PPSC and NDCP are for Masters courses of bureaucrats and professionals. Lawmakers know it. Some of them have enrolled; not a few flunked.

PSHS and SEI are scholarships of Dept. of Science and Technology.

Why didn’t BBM include the Development Academy of the Philippines for newbie lawmakers and local officials, General Staff College for aspiring colonels and generals, Film Academy of the Philippines for screenwriters and videographers, Philippine Judicial Academy for judges promotion and Philippine High School for the Arts in Mt. Makiling?

Did he and veto advisers Executive Sec. Lucas Bersamin, Budget Sec. Amenah Pangandaman, Finance Sec. Ralph Recto and Economic Planning Sec. Arsenio Balisacan forget? Or did they exclude those, kasi masyadong garapal na?

The P825 billion is DPWH’s spending capacity for 2025. Congress’ additional P288 billion have no programs of work, Sec. Manuel Bonoan shudders. Most don’t even state locations.

After P26 billion was lopped off, Bonoan still has P262 billion more than DPWH can handle. Throughout 2025 lawmakers will pester him to hand over their “part funds.”

Pangandaman will try to legalize those with SAROs (special allotment release orders) and NCAs (notice of cash allocations).

(2) P168 billion in unprogrammed appropriations.

The closed-door bicam had relegated to UA certain programs required by law. Meaning, those will be implemented only if unexpected revenues come in. BIR, Customs and other agencies’ collections shall not be touched for:

• 4Ps (Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program), conditional cash for 4.17 million low-income families to send children to daily school feeding;

• Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund, the share of 2.4 million rice farmers from import tariffs on the staple;

• Priority Health and Social Welfare projects; Higher, Technical, Vocational Education; pension for elderly indigents; emergency benefits and allowances for health care and non-health care workers;

• Asset Preservation, right-of-way payments, pre-feasibility studies/preliminary and detailed engineering, Public-Private Partnership Strategic Support Fund, routine national road maintenance;

• DepEd computerization, Infrastructure Flagship Projects, Pambansang Pabahay Para sa Pilipino, Community Mortgage Program of the Social Housing Finance Corporation, revitalizing automotive industry.

“The veto of UA is cosmetic,” ex-senator Frank Drilon says. BBM’s admin has no money for those anyway. In fact, he’ll borrow P2 trillion to finance the programed appropriations brimming with pork barrels.

PhilHealth suffered most. Bicam gave it zero budget. BBM agreed.

Only last August, BBM proposed P74 billion for PhilHealth. It’s for 41.84 million indigent members, Pangandaman, Recto, Health Sec. Ted Herbosa and PhilHealth CEO Emmanuel Ledesma babbled.

The P74 billion was to come from sin taxes on alcohol, tobacco and sweets, as the Universal Health Care Act requires.

Now BBM says, and the rest chuchuwah, that PhilHealth has P284-billion “reserve” to spend this year.

They lie. The P284 billion is not reserve. It’s the contribution of 66.67 million paying members since 1995. They’re entitled to it.

In nullifying sin-tax shares, BBM will make indigents scramble with paying members for meager PhilHealth benefits.

“PhilHealth and 4Ps were not restored, but pork barrels are intact,” Drilon notes.

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