Greedy crocs era

Greedy crocs era | Daily Tribune

The flood control scandal did not happen in a single year. It spanned 2022 to 2025, covering three budget cycles, and the President signed every one of those national budgets.

The question, then, is not simply who stole what. It is why a system that allowed such a racket to flourish was repeatedly allowed to survive.

Marcos did not raise a howl, nor did he send a single authorization back for review until only lately, when he used his veto power as public outrage had already overflowed.

The money was approved year after year while some projects existed only on paper and funds were allegedly diverted through the racket, while whistleblowers privy to the scheme kept quiet because speaking up meant losing a career or worse.

The President cannot now claim that he uncovered the rot in 2025 out of some late instinct for reform. Marcos had those budgets in his hands from the start of his term, yet the irregularities escaped presidential action until 2025.

A history of corruption has long cursed the nation. It repeats itself, with only the names changed.

Marcos Sr. was accused of treating the national treasury as though it were a personal account for two decades, while the pursuit of his family’s alleged ill-gotten wealth dragged on for decades, only to end abruptly with recent court rulings.

The pork barrel scandal during Noynoy Aquino’s watch put Janet Lim Napoles on the front pages and sent senators to jail, at least some of them.

Meanwhile, the Disbursement Acceleration Program redirected billions in unspent funds without congressional approval. The Supreme Court eventually struck it down, but only after the money had already been moved.

Every scandal seems to follow the same three-act script: discovery, outrage and promises of reform that never quite arrive.

Then a new budget cycle starts and the same mechanisms reappear, dressed differently to make the alleged diversion of funds harder to trace.

What makes the current scandal worse is its shape. Flood control funds were financed partly through Unprogrammed Appropriations and money pulled from the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) and from the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC). Those agencies exist to protect ordinary Filipinos: one insures hospital bills, the other insures bank deposits.

Their reserves were raided to fund projects that, in many cases, were never built. Now, the government proposes to refund PhilHealth and PDIC for more than P130 billion that was taken. That refund will come from the same taxpayers who funded the original spending.

Suddenly, Filipinos are hit by a triple whammy. Money was taken from state firms, then allegedly lost to corruption and eventually replaced with budget funds. The public pays three times for projects that, in some cases, never existed.

The 2027 budget is already shaping up as an election budget, which is a fair warning.

Spending rises ahead of elections, concentrated in projects that help incumbents and their families win the ballot. Add to that the durability of political dynasties, families that carry their capital across election after election, generation after generation and the budget becomes predictably vulnerable to pilferage.

The hard decisions get made elsewhere, among people who already know how the cycle works because they have run it before.

Real economic transformation that raises incomes and creates better jobs needs reforms that survive past a single administration, which can only happen through an efficient budget that is not built around the next election.

The lesson from Floodgate is simple. A president who signs a budget cannot later distance himself from what that budget financed.

Oversight, which is his job, is not assumed after the damage is done.