The deliberations for the 2026 national budget promise to see sparks flying as veteran legislators, who have scrutinized past General Appropriations Acts, take their fresh six-year term.
Senator Panfilo Lacson, who gained a reputation for scrutinizing the budget, promises that the previous abuses of public funds will not recur this time and has indicated that provisions in the 2026 budget will be closely examined.
The tenet that Congress is not allowed under the Constitution to execute laws will be the hard and fast rule that applies.
The Charter established guidelines for the role of Congress in the budget preparation process. Legislators cannot implement the law that has been passed.
For the government to run efficiently, members of Congress should adhere to their designated roles.
When members of the House of Representatives and the senators become involved in the distribution of doles or “ayuda,” the system is distorted, Lacson explained.
A review of the 2025 budget showed several anomalies. For instance, according to Lacson, one town with a population of slightly over 10,000 received P10 billion in appropriations.
A small barangay was also allocated P1.9 billion.
Lacson said the questionable entries were among the initial anomalies that his staff discovered in the 2025 budget.
He revealed the P10 billion questionable outlay was for a flood control project for a community near a riverbank.
“We spend P16 billion a day and we earn P12 billion, which means the country would have to borrow P4 billion daily,” he lamented.
If the use of the national budget is not efficient, Filipinos will have no recourse but to sink deeper into debt.
The 2026 budget is set at a record P6.793 trillion, but revenue collections are not expected to keep pace with spending; thus, there is an increasing reliance on contributions from government corporations and a higher debt program to sustain the budget.
The interagency Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) lowered the official growth target range to between 5.5 and 6.5 percent, from the previous band of 6 to 8 percent.
For the debt level to be sustainable, meaning the automatic yearly payments on obligations do not interfere with the provision of government service, an average growth of six percent or more per year is needed.
“Borrowing is not bad in itself, but the money obtained should be used productively,” Lacson said.
Giving out doles does not have any return on investment except for the human capital, which is not entirely true since many of the recipients of the aid are not indigents.
The bicameral conference committee, where the final touches to the yearly budget are made, should be made transparent.
What will be monitored are the flood control projects that have reached a value of P1 trillion over the past three years.
Lacson said that during his previous Senate term, he and Senator Frank Drilon, as members of the bicam, succeeded in removing all items related to dredging and flood control.
“Dredging projects are usually the source of corruption,” he said.
What is usually done is that most dredging projects are merely for visual purposes; they take videos in one part of the project and then transfer to another part for another recording.
“We succeeded then to remove the questionable flood control projects, but they seem to have returned with a vengeance,” according to Lacson.
When the Priority Development Assistance Fund was not yet declared unconstitutional, Lacson said that each senator received P200 million and members of the House received P70 million each.
Now, legislators are receiving more; one senator can receive P5 billion, while one congressman obtained P15 billion in the 2025 budget.
Despite efforts to stamp out corrupt practices in Congress, the conspiracy to rob the people of their hard-earned contributions to progress persisted and had even worsened through the years.