Winnie’s knife twist

Winnie’s knife twist | Daily Tribune

In a forum of mostly alumni discussing budget anomalies during the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., University of the Philippines School of Economics (UPSE) Professor Emeritus Solita Monsod struck a lethal blow to the heads of the economic team.

The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has been led by a succession of UPSE economists, including former Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas governor Ben Diokno, secretary Amenah Pangandaman, and now acting DBM head Rolando Toledo.

Pangandaman had to resign after being implicated in the shameful corruption scandal where billions of pesos were plundered from the yearly budget.

Monsod expressed her disappointment over the flood control mess happening during the successive tenures of alumni of the eminent college that also produced the Department of Economy, Planning, and Development (DEPDev) Secretary Arsenio Balisacan.

The sucker punch was directed at Toledo, as Monsod, who was in the audience, said she could not accept that the DBM official had only learned of the flood control mess after the President divulged it during his State of the Nation Address in 2025.

“You did not know that there was a tremendous amount of flood control, because you reported this in your yearly budget report that the expenditures from flood control were over 100 percent over budget, over target. So how could you not have known?” Monsoad, a former socioeconomic planning secretary, was incredulous.

“It is beyond belief that you could not have known about this. And then we find out that the budget secretary, Amenah Pangandaman, resigned amid corruption allegations. What has happened to the School of Economics?” she fumed.

She went on, “I’m very, very disappointed, I must say. And I’m sorry that I’m saying this, but it’s true.”

Monsod and other UPSE economists at the forum criticized the manipulation of the national budget the past three years to create pork barrel funds, mainly using the unprogrammed appropriations (UA) as a conduit.

The professor delivered a stinging rebuke to state scholars now in government: “It pains me that this corruption scandal unfolded while graduates of the School of Economics were in positions of responsibility.”

Toledo acknowledged the remark by bowing his head, perhaps in shame.

The mentor delivered another direct hit at Toledo, saying that, as a UPSE graduate, he should have been familiar with government reports. “I’m the only one, I think, that looks at it. But every year it comes out, every July it comes out with an evaluation of the performance of the Philippine Development Plan. We have plans, we’ve got results matrices,” according to Monsod.

Then the knockout punch: “I’m sorry if I offended you, but you don’t get a very good grade from me.” Toledo admitted that during the tenure of Pangandaman at the DBM, “there were UA that were released for flood control.”

“We cannot deny that. That is available, that is on the website where we released the Special Allotment Release Order (SARO). So, yes, we released some SAROs and notices of cash allocations to fund the flood control projects through the UA,” he conceded.

Toledo claimed that the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) had certified excess revenues to trigger the release of funds for the UA.

The trigger was activated through a racket initiated by a collusion between Congress leaders and then Finance Secretary Ralph Recto, who issued a directive to government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs) to yield their “excess funds” to the BTr.

Recto, as a member of the Bicameral Conference Committee (Bicam) in the preparation of the 2024 budget, was among those responsible for inserting a provision allowing the Department of Finance (DoF) to sweep reserve funds from GOCCs.

The machination resulted in the pilfering of P60 billion from the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) and P107 billion from the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC).

The Supreme Court dismissed the Recto maneuver as unconstitutional and ordered the return of the reserve funds. Toledo used the discredited excuse that the UA was abused to comply with a GAA provision. It was a mafia operation of the Executive and Congress that hijacked the UA to generate legislative kickbacks.