Ping lauds budget transparency push

Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson on Wednesday lauded the move by both chambers of Congress to open the national budget process to public scrutiny, calling it a significant stride in the fight against corruption and “pork barrel” allocations.

In a statement, Lacson welcomed the House of Representatives’ adoption of House Resolution No. 94 which institutionalizes the participation of civil society organizations (CSO) as non-voting observers in the deliberations of the House Committee on Appropriations.

He also confirmed that he and several senators signed a concurrent resolution aimed at ensuring transparency throughout the budget process, a move he described as a united front between the Senate and the House in the pursuit of clean governance.

“What we signed yesterday is a concurrent resolution so both houses of Congress, thankfully, are united in making the budget process transparent to the bicameral conference committee,” Lacson said.

According to the veteran legislator, transparency would make it easier to trace the lawmakers who propose last-minute insertions or realignments believed to fund ghost or questionable projects.

“At the very least, the proponents of amendments, a.k.a. insertions and realignments, especially for questionable or ghost projects, can be easily identified,” he said.

Lacson acknowledged that while the resolutions are not “foolproof,” their proper implementation could help curb longstanding budget manipulation practices.

“It may not be a fool-proof mechanism that will make the budget insertion- and commission-free, but at least it promises to cut down the corruption that hounded previous budget processes — if implemented properly,” he said.

During the Senate session on Tuesday, Lacson interpellated Senator Loren Legarda after her privilege speech and emphasized that increasing transparency would pressure lawmakers to avoid inserting projects without coordination with implementing agencies.

“I think we can more or less mitigate any insertions because legislators will be more reluctant to insert projects that are not coordinated with the agencies that will implement those projects, simply because they will be identified if we have a transparent budget process or legislation process dealing with the budget for 2026,” he said.

Lacson saw the new resolutions as expected to influence the formulation of the 2026 national budget.

Further, several watchdog groups and reform advocates were hopeful that public participation and greater oversight would lead to more responsible and accountable spending of the people’s money.