The persistent relegation of foreign-assisted projects (FAPs) to Unprogrammed Appropriations (UA) — which are subject to tentative financing — has delayed the implementation or completion of infrastructure projects by several years.

In effect, economists argue that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. could be accused of economic sabotage for approving the annual General Appropriations Act (GAA) during his tenure.

His administration sabotaged his own Build Better More project by putting many big-ticket projects under the UA, one economist pointed out.

FAPs require counterpart financing, estimated at P97 billion, to unlock funding from multilateral lenders. These are the allocations that were moved to the UA over the past three years.

Many of the train systems remain idle. Delays have hampered railway projects because politicians have reallocated counterpart funding to Unprogrammed Appropriations.

The Metro Manila subway was pushed back to 2030 due to delays and its inclusion in the UA over the past couple of years.

In the 2025 national budget, widely considered the most corrupt in history, many important projects were placed under the UA to make way for pork projects.

According to an economist, the FPAs were classified under tentative funding because they are harder to corrupt.

There’s little room for them to insert themselves or receive kickbacks from big-ticket infrastructure projects, so it’s not a priority for legislators.

Small projects are more susceptible to corruption, such as community flood control projects, road networks, farm-to-market roads, and multipurpose buildings.

Economic growth is thus compromised, as the gains the nation expected from essential projects, such as railways, were not realized due to the mismanagement of the budget over the past couple of years.

In the 2024 budget, a provision was inserted allowing the government to draw funds from government corporations such as the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) and the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC).

The government extracted P107 billion from the PDIC under former finance secretary Ralph Recto, and, in the 2024 General Appropriations Act, the same amount was allocated to flood control projects.

The SC ordered a halt to the pilferage of PhilHealth funds and the return of P60 billion; the ruling was vague about the transfer of the PDIC funds to the Treasury.

The UA made room for all the patronage-driven projects.

Vetoing the UA will do little to effect reform, as the UA requires new sources of excess revenue or new loans. Congress needs to remove the UA from the coming budgets entirely.

The 2026 General Appropriations Bill, as it stands, is not people-centered because there’s still so much pork in it.

Congressional leaders claim the education budget in the GAB is already more than four percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

The figure was derived by assuming a conservative estimate of the 2026 GDP and by inflating the education budget to include allocations for the Philippine National Police Academy and the Philippine Military Academy program.

“If you remove those new items, the total education budget for 2026 would be about 3.8 percent of GDP, which is the same as in previous years,” a veteran economic expert noted.

Projects that the people need continue to be devalued, as politicians continue to prioritize their own interests.