Utang pa more

Utang pa more | Daily Tribune

Where does the budget mafia in the Executive and Legislative branches source the funds to cover the ballooning unprogrammed appropriations (UA), which consist of projects diverted from the annual national budget?

Unprogrammed appropriations are intended to serve as standby funds in the annual General Appropriations Act (GAA), released only when specific conditions — such as excess revenues, new loans, or other defined triggers — are met.

In the Marcos budgets, however, the UA has been redefined as a receptacle to facilitate the insertion of pork barrel funding with guaranteed allocations.

In the 2023 budget, the UA totaled P807 billion; in 2024, P731 billion; and in 2025, P363 billion, after President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. vetoed P168 billion.

In the 2026 National Expenditure Program under deliberation, the UA remains at P250 billion.

Since the annual amounts must be paid for, as these involve critical projects, half of the large 2024 allocation was sourced from the so-called excess funds of government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCC), the rest from the usual source, which is borrowing.

For the year, the government’s debt exceeded its target, with a large portion allocated to suspected pork barrel projects that government officials ultimately pocketed.

The think tank Ibon Foundation said the money did not go to much-needed social services and protection for the poor, particularly millions of distressed farmers and fisherfolk, or to supporting hundreds of thousands of struggling small businesses.

Outstanding debt increased to P17.6 trillion in October 2025, already exceeding the government forecast of P17.36 trillion by year’s end.

Government data showed that the debt has increased from P12.79 trillion in June 2022, at the start of Marcos Jr.’s administration, to the current P17.6 trillion, an increase of P4.8 trillion (37.3 percent).

The gross borrowings, thus, come to a record P208.3 billion per month, which is faster than the previous Duterte (P130.6 billion) and Aquino (P61.5 billion) administrations combined.

The massive increase in debt corresponds to the growth in the UA, which was P251 billion in 2022, the last year of the Duterte administration.

The most significant budget increases for flood control projects occurred under the Marcos administration, with P68.3 billion in 2023 and P69.6 billion in 2024.

The flood control project budgets of P283.2 billion in 2023, P352.8 billion in 2024 and P350.5 billion in 2025 are the most significant allocations in budget history.

Ibon said independent estimates showed as much as P695.8 billion of the proposed 2026 budget is presidential and legislative pork.

Despite the growing addiction to pork, the 2026 borrowing program, as outlined in the National Expenditure Program (NEP) and the Budget of Expenditures and Sources of Financing (BESF), targets P2.682 trillion this year.

The amount will plug the projected budget deficit of P1.646 trillion, approximately 5.3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), while also covering maturing debt obligations and maintaining fiscal sustainability.

The program shifts slightly toward more foreign borrowing to diversify sources and manage costs.

The financing mix is 77-percent domestic and 23-percent foreign.

The ravages of corruption keep the debt swelling, piling up like suitcases of plunder for the President and his cronies.

As a result, government finances are diverted away from uplifting Filipinos’ welfare and strengthening national development.