“Ground and chopped.”

This is how Imee Marcos described the fate of the country’s 2026 national budget, saying key projects were cut while selected allocations were increased.

“When the chunks are big, it’s hard to put in. It’s like a pork barrel. That’s why it’s being ground — so it’s not obvious who is being fed and who is being starved,” Marcos said in a statement on Tuesday, Jan. 6.

According to the senator, the major cuts to projects critical to the country were not accidental.

She lamented that funding for foreign-assisted transport projects, including the Metro Manila Subway and the North-South Commuter Railway, was reduced to P49.2 billion from P121.5 billion.

“This is not austerity. This is slaughter. The train was eliminated, so the country’s movement would be sluggish,” Marcos said, noting that the “same thing” happened to flood control and bridge projects.

“There are floods everywhere, but our funds are dry. Then you will wonder why people are angry,” she added.

Marcos also raised concern over projects she said were “favored” in the allocation of funds.

“The budget is being milled so that the people can be easily fooled. But remember, the scales don’t lie. And pork, no matter how much it is ground, is still pork,” she said.

Marcos made the statement after her brother, Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., signed the P6.793-trillion national budget for 2026 but vetoed seven of the 10 unprogrammed appropriations (UAs), amounting to P92.5 billion out of the total P243.4 billion.

With the veto, UAs under the 2026 General Appropriations Act were trimmed to P150.9 billion, the lowest level since 2019.

The rejected line items included budgetary support for government-owned and -controlled corporations (P6.895 billion), prior years’ local government unit shares (P14.623 million), payment of personnel services requirements (P43.245 billion), the CARS Program (P4.32 billion), the RACE Program (P250 million), insurance of government assets and interests (P2 billion), and the government counterpart for certain foreign-assisted projects (P35.77 billion).