Postscript on the 2025 budget

It is well and good that a number of petitions had been filed with the Supreme Court seeking the annulment of the 2025 National Budget. Its contents are contrary to the Constitution and are against the law and public policy. The manner of its passage was illegal, irregular and highly questionable.

The 2025 appropriation act is perhaps the worst budget ever approved in Philippine history. There are blank items that beg to be filled up by unscrupulous hands. There are unprogrammed line items that leave too much flexibility to spend public funds without control This is a formula for plunder.

It was already a convoluted budget, hodgepodge, without rhyme nor reason, when the Bicam endorsed it to the Office of the President for approval. Malacanang postponed the December 20 scheduled signing to December 30, Rizal Day, a national holiday, and made some hurriedly, ill-considered veto of some line items. Both Congress and the Palace are at fault.

The selective and disjointed presidential veto made matters worse, and left the unprogrammed allocations untouched, expectedly because some congressmen issued a not-so-veiled threat that they would override the veto if the President committed the faux pas of touching their hidden and unprogrammed appropriations. Remember that this is an election year and all the members of the House and one-half of the members of the Senate are up for reelection.

The fearless Jarius Bondoc of the Philippine Star bannered his column on the third day of the year "After BBM's cosmetic veto, the budget is still the crookedest ever." We cannot disagree. It was already damaged, mangled and crooked when forwarded to the Palace. The president's economic team led by his Budget Secretary and advised by the executive secretary led BBM to veto some line items, in order to appease many sectors who smelled a rat, in fact, many rotten rats. But the veto was a cosmetic, band-aid solution. Bondoc hit the nail on its very head.

First, and the unkindest cut of all was the 168 billion unprogrammed appropriation. If there was an item that begged to be vetoed, that was it. This is the "corpus delicti " of any attempt at technical malversation. This is the root cause and the proximate cause of some magical "hocus focus" and "abra cadabra" in the expenditures of public funds. This is also a blanket panacea against the scrutiny of COA. I challenge the Makabayan Bloc to question this before the Supreme Court.

I do agree that there were highly questionable insertions and the President should have vetoed them. It was alleged that the House made a last-minute "pahabol" of 17.37 billion which is more than 100 percent questionable increment to what was approved for the House in the amount of 16.3 billion. That means that the House has 33.67 billion total. Where shall the House members use that huge amount and for what purpose?

The Senate also was not far behind. The Upper House made its own "pahabol" of no less than 1.1 billion unduly increasing its originally approved allocation of 12.8 billion to 13.9 billion. These insertions were made without prior public hearing. There was a violation of the procedures, and the President closed his eyes to all such deviations. BBM used to be a congressman and a senator himself. He should know.

The AKAP was given 26 billion and Jarius Bondoc says this is going to be used to buy votes for the 2025 elections, thus favoring the administration over whatever remains of the rag tag opposition. I agree that while Dep Ed suffered a substantial slash, the DPWH enjoyed a huge increase. This is, of course, a gross violation of the Constitution which explicitly mandates that education should be given the biggest slice of the national appropriation.

I also have a fundamental question about the veto. The President did not only veto some items of the budget, he mangled it. He reportedly transferred the 15 billion allocated for school construction from the DPWH to Dep-Ed. That was a hurriedly done knee jerk reaction and an ill-considered solution that is more damaging than the problem itself.

Then he lumped together into what he calls "education agencies" such agencies as CHED, TESDA, State Universities and Colleges, and even lumped with them such extraneous institutions as the National Defense College of the Philippines, The Philippine Science School system, the Philippine Science Institute and, my God, the Philippine Military Academy, the Philippine National Police Academy, the Public Safety College and the PNP Academy.

Will somebody, a taxpayer, a concerned citizen, a movement or any organization who cares for the country, please go to the Supreme Court and file a petition to annul this budget, and in the meanwhile, pray for the issuance of a TRO and a preliminary injunction?

With due respect to the former Chief Justice, who is now the Executive Secretary, and who I hold in utmost esteem,  I cannot agree that the Supreme Court will not have the inclination to restrain the implementation of this most questionable  budget, if and when it is found contrary to law and public policy.