MANILA, Philippines — Doubling down on last year’s budget transparency reforms, the Senate is pushing for the publication of official transcripts during the bicameral conference committee proceedings to expose lawmakers who sneak questionable realignments into the proposed 2027 national outlay.
Sen. Panfilo Lacson yesterday said that merely livestreaming the bicam meetings is not enough, arguing that documented minutes are crucial in identifying who initiates amendments and project insertions behind closed doors.
“The bicam should have a minutes (of the meeting), with the transcript recorded. This is the only bicam on all measures without a transcript. We would not be able to understand who introduced the amendment. There should be one (transcript) now. For the longest time, there has been no transcript,” he said in a radio interview.
To further safeguard the national budget, Lacson said the Senate plans to invite civil society organizations such as the People’s Budget Coalition to act as “guardia civil” or watchdog during the bicameral meetings.
He urged these watchdogs to aggressively call out erring lawmakers.
“My plea is that vigilance is not enough. My plea to them is maybe they can resort to shaming,” Lacson said.
He aims to put an end to the “double kill” practice where lawmakers insert pet projects into the National Expenditure Program and then add more once the bill reaches Congress.
He also sounded the alarm on deliberately falsified geotagging in proposed infrastructure projects, noting that some coordinates pointed to the Celebes Sea.
“This is unacceptable. I thought Leyte was far enough, until I heard (the findings of the) People’s Budget Coalition, (the coordinates) reached the Celebes Sea. So this was not a typographical error because it was geotagged, pinpointed,” Lacson said.
“This was not an oversight. It was kind of obvious that it was deliberate,” he added.
To prevent projects from turning into untraceable ghost allocations, Lacson stressed that the Unified Account Code Structure (UACS) must remain attached to every project throughout the entire legislative process.
“The thing is, when it is being deliberated in the GAB (general appropriations bill) and in the Senate, the UACS is removed,” he said.
Congressmen have defended the budget bill they passed.