Fiscalizers are zeroing in on unprogrammed funds as the source of lump sum appropriations in the “pork-free” 2024 national budget.

While the Supreme Court ruled in 2013 that the Priority Development Assistance Fund and similar discretionary lump sums in the budget that gave legislators authority to implement government projects were illegal, the pork barrel has been resurrected in different forms over the years.

The common denominator is kickbacks that enrich legislators by up to 20 percent of the cost of the projects. In all, about 30 percent of public funds is eaten up by corruption.

To go around the SC ruling, the Palace asks House members to submit lists of projects they endorse for their districts, which are then included in the National Expenditure Program or NEP.

Experts define the pork barrel system as the legislative practice of slipping funds for a local project into a broader budget, even when the sponsored contracts may have little or nothing to do with the national objective.

Such funding primarily benefits the legislator’s home district, serving to garner or preserve political support from constituents while at the same time financially benefiting the sponsoring legislator in terms of commissions.

The pork barrel, thus, has the effect of substantially inflating the cost of legislation.

The late firebrand Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago had a simple definition of the pork barrel system — a dangerous minefield leading to corruption.

In the 2024 national outlay, budget watchdogs noted huge extra items in the unprogrammed funds following the bicameral conference committee. This practice had become common in the yearly crafting of the budget.

The 2024 National Expenditure Program had P281.9 billion in unprogrammed items that ballooned to P731.4 billion after the bicameral conference committee meetings on the P5.768-trillion General Appropriations Bill.

According to former senator Panfilo Lacson, “Under the 2022 General Appropriations Act, Congress managed to realign to the unprogrammed appropriations under the Special Purpose Fund the amount of P100 billion, while under the 2023 GAA, they realigned a total of P219 billion to the unprogrammed appropriations.”

Fiscalizers may question the budget before the Supreme Court since Article VI, Section 25 of the Constitution states that Congress, in crafting the annual budget, should not increase the appropriations recommended by the President.

Bloating the unprogrammed funds effectively breached the P5.768-trillion ceiling prescribed in the 2024 NEP.

Previously, groups keeping watch on the budget identified other ways, including adjustments in the auditing process, as a source of the pork barrel.

Tweaking the Department of Agriculture’s budget, which is usually packed with insertions by Congress, is the preferred way to introduce lump sums, such as for farm-to-market roads.

The Unified Accounts Code Structure or UACS, a supposed reform in public financial management, is also suspect.

UACS provides a single classification system for all government financial processes, from budgeting to cash management to accounting and audit. Through the system, some projects are inserted during the budget deliberations in the House of Representatives.

Another way is using the savings from a deferred itemized project.

The budget secretary can declare a project abandoned at the administration’s whim and then use the appropriation for another project not authorized by Congress.

Also brought to light to re-animate the pork was the Department of Budget and Management’s submissions to the House of Representatives alleging errata that, in reality, were additions, realignments, insertions, and typographical errors that ran into the billions of pesos.

The resurrection of the pork barrel system usually happens with the conspiracy of the Palace and Congress, leaving only the Supreme Court as the hurdle for the porky monsters.