Plunder for crooks

Plunder charges are possible for the two legislators who were tagged as responsible for P142.7 billion in insertions in the Bicameral Conference Committee report that became the basis for the General Appropriations Bill, which President Ferdinand Marcos signed.

Deputy Speaker Antipolo Rep. Ronnie Puno said Ako Bicol Rep. Zaldy Co, who was the then chairperson of the House appropriations committee and then Senate president Chiz Escudero were the only legislators in the “small Bicam” when the budget bill was given its final touches.

“If investigators can prove that somebody got money, then you can connect the insertion or the amendment to the budget to an act of plunder,” Puno pointed out.

He said that if plunder will be hard to prove, then malversation will be easier.

In malversation, the individuals acting in accordance with the contract must be identified. It would be the Department of Public Works and Highways official, the Commission on Audit accountant, and the contractor who received the money. The connection between the contractor and the member of Congress who inserted the allocation must also be proved to show a conspiracy.

It must be proved, however, that the money was misused, since the practice of insertions in itself is not illegal, Puno said. “The insertion itself is not a crime. In fact, it is the obligation of congressmen, which is to amend the budget in the way they see fit,” he said.

Puno, nonetheless, insisted that Escudero and Co were, in effect, the masterminds of the insertions in the 2025 national budget.

“But then again, as I mentioned earlier, insertion itself is not a crime because it’s an amendment to the budget bill, which Congress is actually supposed to review. You can reduce it where you think it’s not needed. You can add to it where you think it has been overlooked,” Puno explained.

It was, however, the scandalous manipulation of the 2025 national budget that made it the most corrupt yet.

In the 2025 bicam report, P12 billion was removed from the Department of Education, the P70 billion subsidy for PhilHealth was taken out, and the allotments for several agencies were cut, all of it transferred to the DPWH. This bloated the public works agency’s budget to $1.1 trillion courtesy of the small committee.

“So, on face value, you wouldn’t immediately cry foul when you see an increase in the department of public works budget. It’s when many of the projects are now seen to be either non-existent or substandard. Therefore, the purpose for which the amounts were transferred, which was the floods, was actually not addressed,” he said.

In the small committee, only Escudero and Co actually worked on the details because they said it would be too unwieldy to have the four-member panel review everything.

Limiting the small committee to the two legislators from Bicol raised suspicions.

The intent to surreptitiously transfer funds was there, and many asked why the full Bicam was excluded from the crucial phase of the budget process.

In his defense, among other things, Escudero decried his being singled out when other legislators also benefited from contractors’ campaign contributions, for instance.

It doesn’t make him less guilty, but as the Senate president, the public expected better from him.