Pork lovers are off-limits

Development priorities are set to regain ground in the 2027 national budget under the Senate finance panel’s battle plan to eliminate pork insertions and prevent the spending measure from becoming a replay of previous budgets that spawned the flood control scandal.

Committee chairperson JV Ejercito is laying down non-negotiables, starting with restoring funding for all foreign-assisted projects (FAPs).

These projects had become favorite targets of pork-seeking lawmakers who shelved their funding and transferred the allocations to the Unprogrammed Appropriations (UA) to fund their pet projects.

Under the UA, the funding for FAPs is uncertain, while the inserted projects get definite allocations.

Ejercito insists the 2027 budget must protect the projects that build the nation, even though he understands that House members want projects for their own districts.

Still, he holds that they must follow national priorities and railways, ports, airports, major bridges and highways should remain untouched, since the country must catch up with its neighbors Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, which have attracted foreign investors through efficient project-building processes.

The House-approved General Appropriations Bill for 2027 slashed about P130 billion from FAPs, risking delays to the North-South Commuter Railway and the Metro Manila Subway.

Since the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the Asian Development Bank have lent the country money, Ejercito argues that the government must keep its word so that lenders will trust it when the Mindanao Railway and the South Long Haul line to Bicol come up later.

Foreign lending institutions require counterpart Filipino funds for development projects they fund through concessional Official Development Assistance loans to indicate the country’s commitment.

Thus, shifting FAP budget items to the UA affects the country’s prospects of obtaining future development funding.

Ejercito said he plans to restore all counterpart funds under programmed spending. He added that the Supreme Court has limited the use of the UA so this could no longer be abused.

Ejercito also wants to put health and education first. As the author of the Universal Health Care Law, he vowed to increase the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) subsidy so more hospitals can offer zero-balance billing.

Funding for immunization and health promotion will also be restored. The P4.5 billion cut from the Health Facilities Enhancement Program will be reinstated so that provincial hospitals can get better equipment.

The medical assistance fund, or ayuda, that politicians dole out for poor patients will also be cut, and much of the money will be shifted to PhilHealth and the Department of Health.

Every peso restored, however, must be taken from somewhere else. Because the room to spend is small, the task becomes more difficult.

A tighter process is at the heart of the reform, with Ejercito’s committee reviewing each project line by line for the first time.

In past years, agencies sent only the budget item title and the cost, and the paperwork would come later. This year, Ejercito said only projects with complete paperwork would be retained.

Ejercito wants the changes to outlast him, since pork barrel funds, which the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional in 2013, always came back in other forms.

He has filed two bills that would make transparency the rule and bring civil society groups, budget watchdogs, and the academe into the process each year, so they can point out red flags while the budget is being put together.

Hurdling the challenges to free the budget from the abuse it has faced yearly since 2023 has one ultimate goal: To win back the public trust.

It will be an uphill battle indeed.