President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is reportedly livid (isn’t he always these days) over what this paper headlined on Thursday about the slashed budgets for the Metro Manila Subway Project (MMSP) and the North-South Commuter Railway (NSCR).

Both were meant to be cornerstones of Bongbong’s “Build Better More” program, the modern equivalent of the old “edifice complex” of previous administrations. But Congress, it seems, had better things to spend on.

Senator JV Ejercito said it plainly enough: the funds meant for the two projects were gutted to make room for “pet projects.” Some call them insertions, others call them pork, and Risa Hontiveros, to the consternation of Anthony Taberna, called them “amendments.”

Same dog with different collars, just the same. In the end, it’s the same familiar scent. The result? Construction delays, a diplomatic embarrassment, and a rather irritated Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which is footing much of the bill albeit through loans.

Japan, unlike us, takes timetables seriously. When the Japanese promise to finish something in 2028, they mean 2028. In the Philippines, that translates to 2032, give or take another administration.

The numbers are staggering. The MMSP and NSCR together cost roughly P1.4 trillion. The first is supposed to be our first-ever subway system, a symbol of modern urban mobility. The second would connect the north and south of Luzon through rail, reducing travel time and economic friction.

Both were to be finished before Marcos left office. Instead, they now risk becoming part of his unfinished legacy — if, by then, he can lay claim to any legacy at all when he packs his bags out of Malacañang.

Senator Ejercito blames former House appropriations chair Elizaldy Co, who was said to have decided that these projects should be shifted from the “programmed” to the “unprogrammed” funds. To ordinary people, that means from “ready money” to “if-we-get-lucky money.”

Unprogrammed appropriations can only be had if the government earns more than expected or if foreign grants come in. In short, they are placeholders for hope.

That hope, as usual, proved misplaced. The Department of Budget and Management (DBM), that hopelessly inept department under Secretary Amenah Pangandaman, did not automatically release the funds, according to sources. And by the time that it did, Japan had already come knocking, wondering where the trains had gone.

This latest numbing scandal might seem technical, a budgeting issue that only accountants care about. But in truth, it exposes our proclivity to start things but not finish them. We approve blueprints but forget to buy the cement. We like ribbon-cuttings, not actual brick-and-mortar spadework.

Ejercito says the President was furious when JICA raised the issue directly with him. No surprise there. Japan is one of our oldest and most reliable partners in infrastructure development. For it to complain about delays is to suggest that the Philippines, once again, cannot keep its word.

The NSCR and MMSP are practical necessities for a country choking daily in traffic and inefficiency. Yet, instead of ensuring their completion, Congress treated the funds like loose change to be redirected elsewhere. 

“They prioritized their own projects,” Ejercito said, without irony.

Marcos wanted to cut ribbons before 2028. Now, those ribbons might be passed to his successor, who will claim credit for the same tracks that should have been laid by now.

And here lies the deeper irony. Politicians love trains because they make for good photo ops: helmets on, shovels in hand, pretending to dig. What they seem to forget is that trains also symbolize discipline, timing, and predictability. They run on schedules, and not speeches.

In a nation where “mañana” is a management philosophy, trains will always be a metaphor for what could have been.

The President has every reason to be angry, though perhaps his anger should not stop with one congressman or one committee. The entire system that allows “insertions” and kickbacks that displace national priorities deserves a reckoning.

Because if our leaders cannot even keep a train on track, how can we expect the country to move forward? Perhaps the true Filipino transport system is not a subway or a commuter rail. It’s a loop, an endless circle of plans delayed, funds diverted, and promises derailed. And at that, we are always right on time.