‘Puppet Master’ behind pork barrel comeback

A decade after the Supreme Court struck down the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) and the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), fears mounted that pork barrel politics had staged a comeback —this time cloaked under the label of “unprogrammed appropriations.”

And at the heart of the controversy is a familiar name: Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman, once described in congressional hearings as the “puppet master” behind questionable budget insertions.

DBM’s central role

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM), under Pangandaman, is accused of enabling lump-sum diversions that echo past pork scams. Petitioners led by Bayan Muna had asked the Supreme Court to nullify the transfer of P60 billion from the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) and P104 billion from the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC) to the national treasury.

“(The) transfer of the subject funds was unconstitutional and any spending of the same cannot be cured by the claim to health-related expenditures,” Bayan Muna chair Neri Colmenares argued in a 52-page memorandum.

‘Hijacked’ priorities

Former banker and governance advocate Alex Escucha told DAILY TRIBUNE on 10 September that the national budget process — supposed to reflect long-term goals like AmBisyon 2040 — had instead been hijacked through congressional maneuverings and the DBM’s tolerance of lump-sum allocations.

“What actually happened in the bicameral conference committee was not just the reconciliation of items — there was a real allocation,” Escucha explained.

He cited how counterpart funding for 197 flagship infrastructure projects in 2024 for 2025 was stripped and rechanneled into unprogrammed funds, forcing economic managers to raid PhilHealth and the PDIC.

“Even Senator Ping Lacson gave a speech saying that what they did to PhilHealth was illegal. I was 99-percent sure the Supreme Court would rule it unconstitutional,” he added.

Escucha warned of a pattern: “In 2023, they started to test the formula. Nobody complained, so they increased it again in 2024. And by 2025, they went overboard.”

Echoes of PDAF and DAP

The scheme showed striking similarities to the pork barrel system under the PDAF and the DAP — both of which were struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Like PDAF, which allowed lawmakers to funnel billions to bogus NGOs, and DAP, which pooled agency “savings” for presidential pork, today’s unprogrammed appropriations grant both Congress and the executive discretionary control over huge sums with little oversight.

Former DBM secretary Florencio Abad even noted that the Office of the President received an unsolicited P5-billion budget increase in 2025.

The puppet master connection

This isn’t the first time Pangandaman’s name has been linked to pork barrel-style controversies.

In 2019, a House inquiry found that P75 billion worth of projects had been slipped into the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) budget without the agency’s knowledge.

Witnesses pointed to then DBM undersecretary Pangandaman as the official who ordered DPWH employees to “reformat” and encode projects for inclusion in the National Expenditure Program.

Lawmakers, led by then appropriations chair Rolando Andaya Jr., described Pangandaman — based on witness testimonies — as the “puppet master of all this charade.”

That same year, a separate House investigation into the “flood control scam” revealed what Andaya called “a top-level conspiracy” between DBM and DPWH officials. Testimonies under oath alleged that requirements for flood projects were bypassed under informal Viber instructions, erasing paper trails.

Andaya went so far as to accuse then Budget secretary Benjamin Diokno of orchestrating the anomalies — charges he denied — but Pangandaman’s role in facilitating insertions cemented her reputation in Congress as the operator behind the curtain.

A recurring pattern

From PDAF and DAP to flood control scams and now unprogrammed appropriations, one thing hasn’t changed — the DBM’s central role in moving money around. With Pangandaman at the helm critics warn that history may be repeating itself.