Thieves never learn

Budget insertions have indeed resurrected the outlawed pork barrel system, budget watchdogs discovered after gaining representation in deliberations that allow them to scrutinize the 2027 spending proposal more closely.

The difficult task of purging the annual budget of legislative pet projects now falls on Senate finance panel chairperson JV Ejercito, who has pledged to remove from the House version projects that lack supporting documents.

Under the National Expenditure Program (NEP), or the President’s proposed budget, projects must be backed by a program of work, certification from the Regional Development Council, and a master plan showing whether they form part of the Department of Public Works and Highways’ long-term programs.

These minimum requirements take time to prepare, and for a long time, insertions were used to bypass the process.

Civil society groups piecing together the pork barrel puzzle found that, over the years, the House of Representatives had added proposals that amounted to little more than lists of projects — the same practice that set the stage for the flood control scandal.

To uncover the manipulation, the process should be monitored from the start of budget preparation through the stage when the appropriations bill is reviewed in the House.

While the 2027 budget has fewer flood control projects after the scandal, these were replaced with numerous multipurpose halls nationwide. These projects total P83.7 billion, an amount that astoundingly exceeds the allocations for essential health facilities and classrooms.

Still, these projects need supporting documents, and these must be made public. Proponents should be ready to provide them while answering the more important questions the public asks: Are these the right priorities? Should these be prioritized over, for example, PhilHealth or foreign-assisted projects?

Some initial findings from the project review are head-spinning. Ejercito, chairperson of the Senate finance committee, said the 2027 budget would be scrutinized line by line, a gargantuan task given the 6,271 items flagged in the House General Appropriations Bill (HGAB).

Some multipurpose halls have been funded year after year for 10 years. Several projects do not even have project coordinates.

For the proposed 2027 budget, nearly 6,000 multipurpose halls were added nationwide, with only around 2,000 having coordinates.

Advanced technology has enabled budget watchdogs to trace and pinpoint questionable projects using geographic information systems (GIS) to map the concentration of multipurpose buildings.

In this way, budget monitors said some projects were funded year after year, with 10 cases showing the same project had been funded continuously for 10 years.

The multipurpose halls include covered courts and evacuation centers. Funding for each multipurpose hall ranges from P2 million to P50 million. In many cases, officials allocated identical amounts to projects in different locations.

Budget monitors also found errors in the coordinates of farm-to-market roads, with some plotted in Benham Rise and the Celebes Sea. Other projects were mapped in Nigeria and Algeria.

One private budget monitor said the process was likely rushed, with shortcuts taken. The haste was hardly surprising, given that more than 6,000 pork barrel projects had been stuffed into the budget.