As a gravitating point, recall how Karl Popper quoted the Pericles of Athens, viz., “We do not look upon discussion as a stumbling block in the way of political action, but as an indispensable preliminary to acting wisely.”

When the Iglesia ni Cristo staged its Rally for Peace with nearly two million of its members coming together simultaneously in major cities across the country, the message amounted to a “show of force.”

Amid the denial of a political motive for gathering a mammoth crowd at short notice, every political analyst could see through the religious movement at a critical juncture to be actually following a political path, viz., “The way the leadership is steering the course of state affairs stinks of corruption.”

INC’s footprint, however mute and unassuming, should nudge the President to see that if state affairs default to “business as usual,” this religious movement can incentivize and mobilize not just its membership but even society writ large to rally behind a common aspiration.

While the group skillfully articulated a middle-of-the-road rhetoric of its non-partisan objective with this mass mobilization, viewed in the context of contemporary developments there must have been a higher moral force sufficient enough to incentivize this social movement against the luminous excesses of pervasive bureaucratic mumbo jumbo.

Verily, it was a conscientious response to bureaucratic incompetence being sold as the “new sophistry.”

Repeated another time, there could be a clear and present danger enough to alarm the President given the contentious and controversial “congressional insertions” detected by watchdogs in the 2025 national budget. Much is left to be desired despite the total of P194 billion chopped from the Department of Public Works and Highways and the bulbous “unprogrammed appropriations.”

The supposed thorough review failed to satisfy the general public acceptance with regard to its resulting soundness, rationality, and fiscal prudence. In sum, the fundamental question that still begs an answer is whether or not public spending in its approved form can trigger economic growth, address the fiscal deficit in infrastructure, and bar an upsurge in foreign debt.

The white papers that occasionally circulate within the military, police, and uniformed services failed to rise to the level of the broader public consciousness over a larger universe. McLuhan’s notion of “the medium is the message” fell on deaf ears and eyes that look the other way, or the President’s military strategists probably know how to tame the beast.

If the final version of the budget after a much-vaunted thorough, scrutinous, and extensive review did not break the public trust, the restiveness in the military, police, and uniformed services should have been unheard of. Is all public expenditure for 2025 in conformity with the Philippine Development Plan 2023-2028, particularly with the retention of P26 billion for the Ayuda sa Kapos ang Kita Program?

The much-expanded concept of the “education sector” to include academies or school centers of the military, police and uniformed services artificially inflated the budget for education as if it was in conformity with the constitutional mandate, except if it was a mere subterfuge.

There’s no denying that the 2020 Covid-19 ayuda, the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program piloted in 2007-2008, and now the 2025 AKAP are kneaded from the same dough and baked in the same oven, namely, the legislature.

Aren’t all these, rolled into one, a classic case of epic structural redundancies that are fiscally hemorrhagic of body polity?