‘Angry nerds’

From all walks of life, civil society organizations (CSOs) and other non-government organizations (NGOs) have finally had their voices heard on their grave common concern on the use of the yearly budget of the national government. Appropriately calling themselves the People’s Budget Coalition (PBC), the convenors banded together these CSOs and NGOs to speak with one voice about accountability and transparency on the government’s use of taxpayers’ money.

PBC co-convenors led by Kenneth Isaiah Abante and AJ Montesa could only profusely thank the senators led by Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian for actually walking the talk about promoting transparency in the budget process of Congress. At least 28 CSOs and NGOs were invited to participate at the resumption of the public hearing being done by the Senate finance committee on the proposed 2027 General Appropriations Bill (GAB).

Dubbed as “The President’s Budget,” the GAB contains the P7.2-trillion National Expenditure Program (NEP) for next year. President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM) endorsed it for approval in the 20th Congress. The NEP is the original GAB as approved by PBBM and submitted to Congress by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).

Before they adjourned for their month-long recess last Oct. 12, the House of Representatives first approved the 2027 GAB under House Bill (HB) 10858. Among other items in the 2027 GAB were the priority projects and programs that PBBM identified in his penultimate State of the Nation Address (SONA) in July this year. The House-approved 2027 GAB is now pending before the Senate finance committee.

Although both chambers are still in recess, the Senate resumed its budget hearings. While the proposed 2027 GAB was still deliberated at the Lower House, the Senate finance committee started already conducting public hearings on the proposed 2027 NEP.

Sen. JV Ejercito, who chairs the Senate finance committee, dedicated the entire public hearing last Monday on the proposed 2027 GAB to listen to the concerns and observations from the various CSOs and NGOs. Of the 55 officials and representatives invited, 42 of them registered their attendance.

The Senate finance committee is the counterpart of the House committee on appropriations that steers the passage into law of the annual GAB. Now headed by Sen. JV, the Senate finance committee was able to gather together the respective leaders of the CSOs and NGOs. Presiding over the public hearing, Sen. JV gave each leader of the CSOs and NGOs five minutes to air their respective views on the proposed 2027 GAB.

 “Most have valid observations on budget flaws,” Sen. JV conceded. “Some are pushing for their respective advocacies,” the Senator noted.

Offhand, the budget watchdog told the senators they all did their respective reviews on the 2027 GAB. About 7,000 infrastructure projects estimated to be more than P1 trillion were red-flagged by most of them. The PBC warned a repeat of the “trillion-peso worth” of scandalous flood control projects.

Abante disclosed the PBC took this initiative in the aftermath of the “ghost” flood control projects scandal of the previous budget bills passed into law by Congress. In fact, the Supreme Court (SC) released last week its ruling that declared as unconstitutional the 2024, 2025 and the 2026 General Appropriations Act (GAA). The 2024 and the 2025 GAAs were approved by the 19th Congress while it was the present 20th Congress that approved the 2026 GAA.

The PBC officially transmitted the data culled from DBM and House official websites of their versions of the 2027 NEP and GAB. Testifying before the Senate budget hearing, Abante credited their 5,500 volunteers of web and software developers who helped the PBC in reviewing the proposed 2027 GAB.

Abante identified the PBC volunteers as “angry nerds” who created for them an artificial intelligence (AI)-aided app (short for application of a software program on computer) on a digitally designed program that went through the House-approved 2027 GAB.

The “angry nerds” tag is obviously a take-off from the popular “angry birds” video game.

The video game uses a slingshot to fling a flock of unique flightless birds at green pigs hiding inside or behind structures. The red-colored bird is the leader of the flock with a serious anger streak, while the green pigs are the main antagonists that constantly steal the birds. It became so popular that it was turned into a movie and cartoon with the same title.

On the other hand, “nerds” are persons who are known to be devoted to intellectual, academic or technical pursuits or interests. Being deeply passionate, knowledgeable or single-mindedly focused on a specific academic, technical or niche subject like computers, the “nerds” are at times referred to as persons who lack social skills, dress unfashionably or struggle with peer interactions.

As identified by these “angry nerds,” much of the projects the PBC found were not under line items in the 2027 GAB but smacked of “pork barrel” allocations of congressional districts. So they can be rightly called “angry nerds” in unmasking where the pigs hide the “pork barrel” allocations in the House-approved GAB.

The PBC “red flags” in the House-approved 2027 GAB pointed to about P695 billion in “hard pork” to denote “politicized infrastructure” projects; P210-billion “soft pork” to mean “patronage-driven ayuda” programs and P112-billion “shadow pork” tucked in unprogrammed appropriations (UA). 

These allocations in the 2027 GAB were contained in different alphabet soup-like acronyms. PBC co-convenor AJ Montesa cited the “soft pork barrel” increases by the House were for discretionary programs such as the Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situation (AICS) under the Department of Social Welfare and Development; Medical Assistance to Indigent and Financially Incapacitated Patients (MAIFIP) of the Department of Health (DOH) and the Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers (TUPAD) of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE).

Malacañang included its own “pork barrel” under the Presidential Assistance to Farmers and Fisherfolk (PAFF).

Thankfully, these “angry nerds” created this free app that is accessible to all Filipino taxpayers that even technologically-challenged ones can easily view and understand.