The most damaging outcome of the sleight of hand at the bicameral conference committee on the 2024 and 2025 national budgets was deprioritizing flagship projects in favor of the lawmakers’ pork barrel.

The 2025 national budget was pared to P6.326 trillion after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. vetoed items that highlighted the bicam’s glaring abuse of its power to amend the budget.

The bicam, a legislative body mockingly referred to as the third chamber of Congress, has been criticized for prioritizing discretionary funds for local infrastructure often controlled by legislators, over strategic national priorities.

It has perfected a system to bloat the unprogrammed appropriations (UAs), which are standby funds released only when revenue collections outstrip the target for the year, the collection of new taxes or borrowings.

In the 2025 budget, UAs were set at P363.24 billion after items worth P159 billion, which were a blatant waste of public funds, were vetoed.

This increase in the bicam allotments for contingent programs over the executive’s original proposal in the National Expenditure Program (NEP) created fiscal space for pork.

Among the displaced funding were government counterpart financing for Official Development Assistance (ODA) projects.

The government is required to provide counterpart funds to unlock ODA loans from partners like the Japan International Cooperation Agency, the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank.

Without firm programmed funding, these projects face delays and penalties through the so-called commitment fees, or worse, cancellation.

The practice reflected a pattern of shoving aside “strategic programs” to accommodate congressional insertions, especially ahead of the May 2025 midterm elections.

Funding for high-impact ODA initiatives in transport, health, and agriculture was shelved in favor of small-scale, local projects under the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), whose 2025 budget ballooned to P1.11 trillion due to the pork insertions, mainly for flood control projects.

Among those affected by the bicam’s juggling of the budget were the Metro Manila Subway Project, North-South Commuter Railway System, LRT Line 1 Cavite Extension, MRT Line 4, rehabilitation of MRT Line 3, major ports and airports, connecting roads and bridges, maritime safety projects and improvements, floor control, reconstruction and development for Greater Marawi Stage 2, and the Metro Manila Flood Management Project Phase 1.

Strangely, the structured projects, such as the foreign-funded flood management program, were bumped off for contracts for the same purpose but under the control of legislators.

Funding for the main anti-poverty program, the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, which is targeted at the poorest Filipinos, was also slashed to build up the fund for the Ayuda para sa Kapos ang Kita Program (AKAP), which also provides cash doles.

The mangling of the budget threw off the administration’s midterm development program.

Government data showed halting the ODA programs resulted in the government incurring an unneeded expense of P2.2 billion in penalties.

The subway project could see costs rise from 10 to 20 percent due to the delays.

To minimize the backlash, the Department of Finance seized funds from state firms, primarily the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation and the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation, to ensure that the UAs were funded.

A vicious cycle was thus created as the money taken from the two state insurers has endangered the institutions’ mandate to ensure the financial and health security of Filipinos.

All this was done to line the pockets of members of Congress.