Deluge, bicam’s monster

Deluge, bicam’s monster | Daily Tribune

Inevitably, the flood control scandal will require revisiting past budget proceedings, particularly for the 2024 and 2025 appropriations laws that were marked by massive pork barrel insertions.

Examining the General Appropriations Act (GAA) of both years will expose the methods by which items were spuriously inserted and the vital programs that were displaced to make room for the operation to pocket public funds.

The sleight of hand occurred mainly shortly before the enrolled bills were sent for President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s approval — during the bicameral conference committee hearings, which were notoriously opaque the better to do political horse trading.

Senator Rodante Marcoleta was the latest to attest to the bastardization of the 2025 national budget through the blank items in the bicam report that were, thereafter, mysteriously filled in the enrolled bill.

Marcoleta, in a Senate hearing on Concurrent Resolution 4 that seeks transparency in the bicam deliberations, said it would be the leadership of the Senate and the House of Representatives that should spearhead reforms in the budget process.

Most of the insertions that resulted in flagship projects being sidetracked in favor of the anomalous flood control projects happened during the bicam that was strongly influenced by the Senate leadership.

Marcoleta recalled how he saw several blank items when he was handed a copy of the approved bicameral conference committee report on the proposed P6.532-trillion budget for 2025.

As a House member in the 19th Congress, Marcoleta recounted seeing 12 to 13 pages in the special provisions of the 400-page bicam report that contained 28 blank budget items.

He said he looked for the annexes containing instructions for the blank items, but did not find any.

“I also inquired with the office of the (House) Secretary General for this information but I wasn’t given access to records, including a copy of the enrolled bill that was submitted to Malacañang,” the senator revealed.

“So, in the enrolled bill, the details were already complete. But [the public never knew thev whole story, as to who filled them, and what was supposed to be filled in all those material particulars,” he said.

A conspiracy to corrupt the budget was also evident during his House stint. Marcoleta recalled that during the House plenary deliberations last year, he was prevented by several of his peers from asking questions on the general principles of the proposed 2025 budget bill.

In the 2024 national budget, the bicam manipulated P1 trillion worth of items, or P564.5 billion in realignments and P449.5 billion to bloat the unprogrammed funds.

It was in this year’s budget that essential projects were allocated unprogrammed funds that were contingent on additional revenues, while the pork projects were assured of funding.

This year, the bicam rearranged P860.5 billion worth of items, or P487.5 billion in realignments and a P373 billion increase in unprogrammed funds.

In the 2025 bicameral maneuvering, the House was allocated P17.3 billion in a lump sum, while the Senate was allocated an additional P1.1 billion. The Office of the President was allocated an additional P5.4 billion for the ASEAN Summit next year, without further details. Similarly, there were no specifics for the House and Senate increases.

The most glaring addition was the P288.6 billion allocated to the Department of Public Works and Highways, which brought its budget to a massive P1.11 trillion for 2025.

That is where the overpriced and, at times, nonexistent contracts were deposited, where the sinister trail to the plunder of public funds starts.