It’s more than three months to the 2026 budget approval, yet all the news about the 2025 national budget still reverberates. It has put a spotlight on a tricky political practice called “budget insertion.”

In simple terms, it’s when our senators and congress representatives add funding for their own pet projects directly into the national spending plan. The key thing is, they do this outside the normal, official process where government agencies carefully plan and propose what they need. It’s like a lawmaker stepping in and saying, “I want this specific project in my district to get money,” and just writing it into the budget himself.

Politicians often argue that this is a way to help their local communities more quickly. Honestly, though, this method is wide open to abuse. It establishes a covert funding system that circumvents the usual checks and balances.

The recent massive scandal, exposed by prominent figures, in which billions of pesos for flood control vanished, is not just a theory. It shows exactly how this loophole can fuel corruption right before our eyes.

To understand the problem, it is essential to comprehend the official budget approval process. It begins with a “Budget Call,” where government agencies submit their proposed programs and projects and their costs, which are ideally rooted in the development plans crafted by local development councils from the barangay up to the regional level.

These agency proposals are consolidated, studied for legality and necessity by the Department of Budget and Management, and crafted into the National Expenditure Program (NEP).

The President reviews the NEP before it is submitted to Congress, where it undergoes a rigorous “budget deliberation.” Here, each agency defends its proposed budget before legislators.

The critical juncture for insertions occurs after both the House and the Senate have passed their respective versions of the budget. A Bicameral Conference Committee meets to reconcile these two versions into a single, final bill.

It is in this closed-door meeting, away from the plenary debates and public hearings, that “powerful” lawmakers, particularly the leadership and chairpersons of the respective Appropriations Committees, exercise their discretion to “insert” funding for projects that were never part of the original NEP submitted by the Executive Branch.

As confirmed by Navotas Rep. Toby Tiangco, these insertions can be colossal, citing an example of more than P13 billion inserted by a single former committee chairman.

This is where the system breaks down. These last-minute additions circumvent the very planning and justification process that every other peso in the budget is supposed to endure. They are not evaluated by technical agencies for feasibility, nor are they necessarily aligned with the national development plan. Quite simply, they are political allocations.

The final safeguard is the President’s veto power. Before signing the General Appropriations BIll into law, the President can review it and veto specific line items deemed “unconstitutional, unnecessary, or irregular.”

The fundamental question now posed to the administration is: how did those billions in questionable insertions escape this executive review? The assertion that the President was simply “betrayed” by his allies strains credibility. With relatives in Congress, the notion that he was entirely unaware of the largest manipulations within the budget implies a concerning disengagement from the core function of governance.

Filipinos are left with two unsettling conclusions: either the President was knowingly complicit, or he was negligently weak in exercising his constitutional duty to guard the national coffers.

True leadership in this scandal demands more than quiet dismay or lip service. It requires the courageous use of the veto power in the next budget cycle and the public naming and shaming of those who orchestrated this betrayal.

To do any less is to confirm that the power of the purse remains not with the people, but with a select few in a closed room.