BBM formula ‘a blueprint for plunder’

Deputy Minority Leader and ACT Teachers Rep. Antonio Tinio on Wednesday slammed the Department of Public Works and Highways’ so-called “Baseline-Balanced-Managed” (BBM) formula, calling it “the heart of a systematic, top-down scheme of plunder institutionalized at the very start of the Marcos Jr. administration.”

Earlier, DPWH Secretary Vince Dizon announced the agency would scrap the parametric formula in preparing its 2027 budget.

But Tinio said the BBM formula shouldn’t just be forgotten or “consigned to the dustbin.”

The lawmaker said the DPWH “allocable system,” and its BBM formula — attributed to the late Undersecretary Maria Catalina Cabral — was essentially a blueprint for centralized plunder.

He claimed that it named President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., his Cabinet, and the leadership of both chambers of Congress as the primary proponents and beneficiaries of “pork barrel insertions.”

Tinio said the formula was used in the preparation of the DPWH budget from 2023 up to the recently enacted 2026 General Appropriations Act, which was branded as a “corruption-free” budget.

Citing the “Managed” section on page 6 of the document, Tinio said the language is a “smoking gun.”

The formula explicitly considers not only the national budget as an economic, political, and legal tool, but also the “priorities of leaders of the national government and the legislature.”

“The language is telling. It names ‘priorities of the leaders’ instead of ‘priorities of the administration’ — meaning individual officials, not institutional mandates. This is an official admission that the budget is adjusted to serve the personal priorities of powerful individuals,” Tinio pointed out.

“And who are these individuals? The DPWH document itself points to them: ‘leaders of the national government and the legislature’ clearly refers to the President, his Cabinet, and the leadership of both chambers of Congress,” he said.

According to Tinio, the BBM formula is essentially a “pork barrel by design,” acknowledging who are the so-called “big fish.” The formula was reportedly concocted in July 2022 under then DPWH Secretary Manuel Bonoan.

“From the very start of the Marcos Jr. administration, this formula embedded the pork barrel in official DPWH policy and set the stage for what we now call the ‘flood control scam,’” Tinio said.

He said that revelations by whistleblowers DPWH Undersecretary Roberto Bernardo and Bulacan district engineer Henry Alcantara, as well as documents in the Cabral files, should be viewed in this context.

Tinio said the BBM formula confirms how corruption in the DPWH evolved into a “centralized, syndicated, and more efficient system of plunder.”

He noted that some agency insiders pointed out that only Cabral understood the formula which was a strategy of the Palace and DPWH officials to protect themselves from allegations of wrongdoing.

“Instead of sweeping this under the rug, the DPWH must officially acknowledge this document as its policy from 2023 to 2026, for which Secretary Bonoan and the Office of the President are ultimately responsible,” Tinio said.

“The BBM parametric formula is the blueprint for grand corruption. It institutionalized kickbacks at the highest levels. Investigations must not stop with mid-level officials or contractors. They must follow the document’s own logic and trace the trail upward to the ‘big fish’ it names,” he stressed.