No other way but slay UA
The Supreme Court killed the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), the old pork barrel, in 2013.
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The Supreme Court killed the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), the old pork barrel, in 2013.
Unprogrammed Appropriations (UAs) are a line item in the yearly national budget that has no business existing.
Former Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Winnie Monsod said during yesterday’s interview on DAILY TRIBUNE’S Straight Talk that it may be the single biggest reason why billions of pesos meant for roads, hospitals, and flood control end up in the wrong pockets.
The UA was intended, years ago, for a narrow purpose: to fund foreign-assisted projects (FAPs) if extra government revenue came in above what was expected. It has become something else entirely during the term of President Marcos.
It has become a budget within the budget, a pool of money that Congress does not scrutinize the way it probes the regular budget, because on paper it does not officially exist until it is “triggered.”
Once revenue collections tick up, or when some other technical conditions are met, this pool of money is unlocked. And when it is unlocked, it does not go where the law originally intended. It goes to pet projects, allies, or whoever grabs it first.
The Supreme Court killed the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), the old pork barrel, in 2013.
The damage shows up in the deficit, year after year, missed target after missed target. Extra government revenue should do one simple thing when it comes in: shrink the gap between what we spend and what we earn.
Instead, that money gets diverted into unprogrammed items, and the deficit stays wide open.
To cover that gap, government borrows. That borrowing is why the national debt now sits above P19 trillion, and the debt-to-GDP ratio has climbed back past the danger line economists watch closely.
The damage also shows up in the quality of what gets built. When a flood control contractor pockets sixty percent of a project’s budget and delivers a structure that collapses in the first typhoon, that is not simply theft.
It is why the economy runs below its true potential, even when headline growth numbers look decent enough to defend in a press release.
The SC is weighing whether UAs, as currently structured, are even constitutional.
Meanwhile, Congress is preparing next year’s budget, and there is no guarantee it will not simply recreate the same loophole under a different name before the Court has spoken.
The public is watching an impeachment trial that, at its core, raises questions about how public money moved without oversight.
Both stories point back to the same root problem: a budget process with too many doors that open quietly, away from public view.
The fix does not require reinventing government finance; it requires courage to close a door that should never have been left open.
Monsod demands that the leadership find the will to remove the UA from the budget entirely.
Let every peso of government spending undergo the same scrutiny, the same hearings, pass through the same public record.
If extra revenue comes in, let it go where it is supposed to go: toward closing the fiscal deficit that grows every month, not toward funding someone’s reelection campaign disguised as a livelihood program.
Alongside that, two more doors need to open. The public deserves to know exactly what changes between the budget a president submits and the budget that finally passes. And the Bicam, where the House and Senate budget versions get quietly merged, should be conducted in the open so that no senator or congressman can slip in a pet project unseen.
Ending the UA only requires legislators and the Palace’s willingness to give up a tool that funnels the budget fat they crave.
Filipinos pay for the UA in debt, in collapsed flood walls, and in stunted growth.
