During a recent exchange in the plenary where making the yearly budget process transparent was discussed, Sen. Ping Lacson made a straightforward suggestion: let’s identify the proponents of insertions.

The names of those who propose insertions and the legislators who support them will be written into the minutes of the budget discussion or in another journal.

Such a simple measure for transparency appeared lost on Senate finance committee chairperson Win Gatchalian, who seemed to have a hard time getting a handle on it.

To those watching the exchange, Gatchalian’s pushback was evident since the solution or, at least, a deterrent to pork project insertions was staring him in the face.

Concurrent Resolution 4 was passed on 13 August by both the House of Representatives and the Senate, seeking to institutionalize transparency and accountability mechanisms in the national budget process.

Under the measure, both chambers will upload on their respective websites documents such as the General Appropriations Bill (GAB), committee reports, bicameral reports, transcripts of budget briefings and hearings, and plenary deliberation records.

Lacson, however, noticed that the declaration was silent on the identities of proponents of amendments or insertions being made public, “so they may be made answerable for substandard or ghost projects that they proposed in the crafting of the GAA.”

Strangely, the proposal to make the budget process transparent was contained in several previous bills that did not even reach the committee report level, according to Lacson.

The purpose of identifying legislators who are the source of amendments to the yearly budget would be to remind them of their accountability, which is not possible with the current process, which is wrapped in secrecy.

The source of the reallocation of funds in the 2025 budget, apparently for pork projects, during the bicameral conference committee, turned into a guessing game due to the absence of records when the budget was being mangled behind closed doors.

Lacson prodded Gatchalian: “Will it include the written submissions of amendments by individual members, particularly individual amendments?”

Came Gatchalian’s winded reply about holding a lengthy discussion on the proposal and a consultation with his and the Senate’s technical staff about the “evolution” of amendments in the budget.

“So, in other words, Mr. President, the original amendment might not be the same in the final product,” Gatchalian said.

To which Lacson said the identification process becomes more relevant since the public can “trace back to the proponent or proponents, no matter how many proponents there are.”

During the verbal joust, the resistance to the call for complete transparency was palpable.

Not naming the proponents of the insertions defeats the purpose for making the budget proceedings public, Lacson said.

Gatchalian then threw up a smokescreen, saying “we don’t upload the third reading report as well as the committee report, so there’s no way to track the changes.”

Gatchalian claimed another complication: “how do we attribute the specific amendment if there are other amendments that will happen to enforce or to operationalize that amendment.”

To which Lacson replied simply, “then let’s track them.”

“Sometimes the chairman will also (introduce changes) to an amendment and so be it. Let’s identify that the chairman also amended the amendment,” came the no-brainer solution.

The resistance was also evident in the decision to craft a joint resolution rather than pass a bill to make the budget process transparent.

In the meantime, members of Congress are already brainstorming on an innovative way to skirt the new hurdle so they could continue to obtain their precious yearly pork.