Crocs, crooks leave hot trail
Marcos’ involvement was hard to miss, since he was aware of what went on in the national budgets from 2023 to 2025, when the UA ballooned.
Daily TribuneMarcos’ involvement was hard to miss, since he was aware of what went on in the national budgets from 2023 to 2025, when the UA ballooned.
The involvement of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in the epic exploitation of the national budget under his term is inescapable, as a member of the House of Representatives — where the manipulation of the yearly government allocations takes place — broke down the tactics of the crooks in government.
Caloocan Rep. Edgar Erice, who was stripped of every position in the chamber, including his membership in every committee, said Marcos’ involvement would be hard to deny despite the obvious efforts to hide his tracks.
During the Supreme Court’s oral arguments on the budget, Associate Justice Marvic Leonen sought to elicit from Solicitor General Darlene Berberabe an admission regarding the ultimate authority for the release of funds for Unprogrammed Appropriations (UA).
Berberabe pointed to the Department of Budget and Management secretary, who was then Amenah Pangandaman, that elicited Leonen’s comment: “In other words, the DBM secretary is no longer the alter ego of the President. The DBM secretary is a co-equal of the President. Or is that a mistaken assumption?”
Erice said Marcos’ involvement was hard to miss, since he was aware of what went on with the national budgets from 2023 to 2025, when the UA ballooned.
“That’s when the trillion-peso diversions, insertions, and amendments allegedly began. Those were the funds that supposedly went into anomalous ghost flood control projects,” he noted.
He explained: “(Fugitive former Ako Bicol Representative Zaldy) Co was the chairman of the appropriations committee. He signed the bicameral report, the small committee report, and the GAA (General Appropriations Act). So he knew, including of course the Senate president. They all knew, but they were silent. Even the President, I think, is downplaying this investigation.” But he himself announced Co’s arrest.
The budget has two parts: expenditures and financing sources. Departments submit proposals from the regional level upward, which are then approved by the Cabinet and the President. That becomes the President’s budget, in accordance with the Philippine Development Plan. Then there are the sources of financing, tax revenues, non-tax revenues and projected income.
The budget operates under a spending deficit. For example, in 2026 projected revenue was only around P4.7 trillion, while P1.7 to P2.3 trillion would come from borrowings.
Then there is the UA, which are items without identified financing sources but these are supposed to come later from new taxes, savings, or excess revenues.
“Before, the UA was small and insignificant. But under the 19th Congress, it exploded — around P800 billion in 2023, over P700 billion in 2024, and more in 2025,” according to Erice.
What was done was to transfer projects like the Metro Subway and the Clark-to-Calamba railway from the regular programs and replace them with flood control projects where the kickbacks were larger.
Because those projects lost their guaranteed appropriations, Japanese funding for the subway could not be released.
The subway, which should be finished by 2028, may not be ready until 2032.
Erice lamented that the manipulation has cost the government.
That means a price escalation, an increase of about 20 percent. The subway costs over P400 billion, so that’ll be roughly P90 billion more. The Clark-Calamba railway costs over P800 billion, so that’s another P160 billion added.
Filipinos will shoulder these additional costs because of what Erice called the “mutilation” of the budget by the 19th Congress.
Whistleblowers? The most probable role of those in the corridors of power is being the brains of the grand larceny in government.
