Fixing a bad budget

The 2025 proposed national budget remains in the headlines for two weeks now. An unprecedented public uproar generated by the unchecked greed of our lawmakers, reflected in the unconstitutional provisions of the proposed 2025 national budget, forced President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. to re-schedule the signing of what has been dubbed as the most corrupt budget in Philippine history on Rizal Day, Dec. 30. 

His executive secretary, Lucas Bersamin, earlier said that the President postponed the original budget signing set on Dec. 20, saying it needed “more time for a rigorous and exhaustive review.”

As I mentioned in my previous column, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) was the biggest winner in the bastardized budget, with Congress pouring in an extra P288.65 billion, making the DPWH budget balloon into a record-high of P1.113 trillion. 

The amount of P288.65 billion was arrived at by deducting funds from various agencies, including P10 billion from the Department of Education (DepEd), P30 billion from the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), P50 billion from the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), P74 billion from the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth), among others.

The proposed 2025 national budget clearly favors politicians who want to safeguard their positions of power by turning the budget into their own personal slush fund in an election year. This rottenness in our budget system was earlier exposed by Vice President Inday Sara Duterte when she revealed that only two personalities control the budget of the Philippines, namely House Speaker Martin Romualdez and his loyal factotum, Ako Bicol party-list Rep. Elizaldy Co. 

One of the solutions being offered to fix the present budget debacle is to return the “very, very bad budget” – in the words of presidential sister Senator Imee Marcos – to Congress to address the contentious budgetary allocations. Congress can then reconvene the bicameral conference committee (bicam). 

However, PBBM himself shot this idea down, explaining “there is no procedure to return it to the bicam” since lawmakers are done with their deliberations. 

So, next. 

Another option is for PBBM to line-item veto or remove the contentious and controversial items from the proposed P6.532-trillion 2025 budget.

The Constitution allows this. Article 6, Section 27 of the 1987 Constitution states, “The president shall have the power to veto any particular item or items in an appropriation, revenue or tariff bill, but the veto shall not affect the item or items to which he does not object.”

This means the President can make line-item vetoes without rejecting the entire budget proposal.

Initially, PBBM was hesitant to confirm if he was vetoing items in the proposed 2025 national budget. However, the Palace released a statement confirming that there will be some vetoed items; however, Malacañang has yet to disclose what these vetoed items would be.

If PBMM is serious in correcting the brazen and self-serving provisions of the proposed 2025 national budget, he could veto and defund the Ayuda sa Kapos Ang Kita Program (AKAP), which Speaker Romualdez fiercely defended and referred to as Marcos Jr. Legacy Program, as if AKAP does not exist. Let us see. This early, lawmakers have expressed confidence Marcos Jr. will not touch the P26-billion AKAP, which targets the “near poor,” according to the DSWD, or those low-income and minimum-wage earners as beneficiaries.  

However, vetoing the contentious items in the proposed 2025 national spending does not translate to realigning the funds allocated for these controversial items. Only Congress has this authority.

The President cannot restore the budget cuts in DepEd and CHED and the zero government subsidy for PhilHealth. 

PBBM is therefore wrongly advised to say that he is only left now with the veto power. 

The President told media of the need to “regain control” of the spending program. How can he regain control when he can only augment funding of education and health care programs through savings which can only be determined during the latter part of 2025? 

Veto power will not suffice. Reallocation and transfer of funds require legislative authority. Congress has the power of the purse – not the Executive. Marcos Jr is totally clueless. What a shame!

So, again, is there any option left?

The best track is to reject the defective budget bill and have a reenacted budget to fix the mess we are in, which PBBM brought onto himself by failing to moderate the greed of his cousin Speaker Romualdez, who was the brains behind this bastardized budget. 

A reenacted budget means the 2024 budget will remain in effect. 

A reenacted budget in 2025 would mean that new programs and projects would not commence as government will operate under the 2024 budget. 

This is the fear of some economists. They would argue that a reenacted budget may seem costly because of delayed implementation or, in the case of others, some projects may continue to receive unnecessary resources since these projects have already been completed. 

With a reenacted budget, the President can ask a supplemental budget from Congress to fund the new programs and projects of critical sectors like education, health care, agriculture and social welfare to be truly reflective of our goal of inclusive socioeconomic growth.

A reenacted budget would likewise mean no deep cuts in these critical sectors.

Finally, a reenacted budget would mean there will be no House of Representatives doubling its budget to P33.7 billion, no DPWH budget bloating to P1.1 trillion and no P26-billion AKAP fund with no clear objectives, except giving ayuda to the “near poor” as if we had resolved the plight of the poorest of the poor.

Let us continue to remain united and vigilant. This is just the beginning of our fight this coming 2025.