Catch the usurper

The mystery of the missing parts in the bicameral conference committee version of the 2025 general appropriations bill (GAB) has deepened as the whistleblower insists there was an anomaly.

Among the emails he received daily as a legislator, Davao Representative Isidro Ungab said, was the House version of the bicam report.

He reviewed the report since he wanted to find out how the Department of Public Works and Highways budget exceeded that of the Department of Education which is mandated to receive the biggest slice of the budget.

It was then that he discovered several empty spaces in the document.

“There were 133 pages with blanks and 28 unfilled items that I saw,” Ungab indicated.

“As I was studying the figures related to the unconstitutional issues of the 2025 GAA, I also worked back to review the bicam report which was sent to the individual emails of House members before its ratification,” he said.

In a statement, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) branded Ungab’s charge as “malicious and irresponsible” but it acknowledged the existence of the documents that Ungab made public.

The DBM statement read: “What has been presented by certain misinformed individuals are pages from the bicam report, and not the GAB nor the General Appropriations Act (GAA).”

Thus, Ungab warned, “Whoever filled in the blanks might be liable for usurping the powers of Congress. It is only Congress that is allowed (by the Constitution) to appropriate.”

In the budget cycle, the GAB undergoes three readings in the House and another three in the Senate.

Usually, the figures resulting from the processes differ in the Senate and the House, a discrepancy that the bicam is tasked to reconcile.

Ungab said the work of the joint body of Congress is very important because it seeks to harmonize the two different versions into the bicam report.

The report once approved is ratified by the plenary of both chambers and then sent to the Palace.

The veteran lawmaker said the GAA did not have any blanks, as the DBM said, because it was an entirely different document from the bicam report.

“How did they come up with the figures placed in the GAA that completed it? The bicam should have reconciled the two versions. Putting anything in the GAA that is not part of the bicam report is not allowed,” Ungab said.

The bicam report was ratified by the two chambers and the legislative process ended with the ratification of the bicam report.

“What was finalized in the bicam report should have been the page-by-page items, so who filled in the blanks after the legislative process ended?” Ungab wondered. “You can’t come up with the GAA without the bicam report.”

“I have gone through four budget processes as the House appropriations committee chairperson and never in the history of Congress were there blank items in the bicam report,” he pointed out.

“As a former head of the appropriations committee of the House and as a member of Congress, I take it as my serious duty and responsibility to study and scrutinize the national budget,” Ungab indicated.

He said the bicam report is supposed to be the basis for the figures reflected in the GAA 2025 minus the President’s message and signature.

He recalled that Senator Imee Marcos refused to sign the bicam report because it “lacks documents and has blanks” in it.

Ungab noted: “The blanks were in the signed bicam report and not the signed GAA but in between the signing of these two vital public documents, the fundamental guide for our disbursement of public funds for this year, something went wrong. Magicians were at play.”

Who were the persons or groups who filled in the blanks? Taxpayers want them unmasked.