Crooks remain at large

The perversion in the 2025 national budget has unraveled, pointing to two characters who were chiefly responsible and who represented the leadership of both chambers, with former Senate President Chiz Escudero as the central figure.

A reliable figure in the House of Representatives said Escudero, as Senate chief, held the levers, and the outcomes favored his political circle.

Of the P142.7-billion in insertions traced to the bicameral conference committee (bicam), P12.08 billion was added, including P3 billion for Angat River dikes, which were linked to Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Joel Villanueva, both allies of Escudero, while an estimated P10 billion was funneled to Sorsogon, Escudero’s bailiwick.

Leaked documents listed P9.136 billion for Sorsogon, broken down into P1.165 billion for flood control, P3.062 billion for roads, P525 million for bridges, and P4.384 billion for buildings.

House Deputy Speaker Antipolo Rep. Ronnie Puno said the bicam was reduced to a small committee composed of four people — Escudero, former Speaker Martin Romualdez, Senate finance committee panel chairperson Grace Poe, and House appropriations panel chairperson Ako Bicol Rep. Zaldy Co.

“The small committee went into their meetings. This is where the insertions were put in. The Speaker did not attend those meetings. Poe was not allowed to attend most of those meetings. It ended up that Co and Escudero were the ones who actually penciled in whatever needed to be penciled in at the end,” Puno pointed out.

Considering who benefited from the insertions that filled the “fiscal space” created by the blank items, it would have been Escudero who spearheaded the manipulation of the budget.

The insertions were made in the bicam report, bypassing plenary debates. Escudero’s “omnibus motion” allowed post-signature “corrections,” enabling blanks/typos to be filled in later.

The “omnibus motion” refers to a mechanism introduced by Escudero during the bicam deliberations for the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA) that allowed post-signature “corrections” to the budget document, enabling the filling in of “blank items” or “typos.”

The insertions were funded with cuts made elsewhere, mostly needed programs such as the P44 billion from education and P15 billion from the Armed Forces of the Philippines modernization fund.

The insertions could have been planned way ahead of the finishing touches in the bicam small committee.

“There were 20,000 Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) projects. So, it takes a lot of real painstaking work to do it. But it was Escudero and Co who actually finalized those things. And that is what I’m saying — it did not come to light until just recently. You know, this is the situation everybody knew was the case as early as January,” Puno revealed.

“That’s what also triggered, I guess, the reorganization in the Senate. Because they know now. But I understand that with the investigations coming up in the Senate, more information will come out about so many things. So I’m looking forward to the Blue Ribbon investigations as well,” Puno said.

With the public outrage reaching a boiling point, the enablers of the crime, who are members of Congress, must be the first to be held accountable.

Instead, it is the contractors and the small fry in the DPWH who have become the center of the ongoing investigations, including those of the Blue Ribbon panel of Sen. Ping Lacson.

The public had pinned high hopes on Lacson for initiating the probe, but when the trail led to the doorstep of the Senate, the deviations were very evident.

The Supreme Court’s ruling on the budget will clarify its legality, including the clandestine bicam moves, but it will not be sufficient unless the crooks are caught and made to answer.