In total disgrace, the Senate Blue Ribbon committee released a report on its “Floodgate” investigation that merely parroted Malacañang’s script of damage control.
The whitewash, which Chairperson Ping Lacson tried to validate through the report, bore the signatures of only seven of 23 senators.
The more than 400-page “partial” report, despite months of investigations and review, merely soft pedaled any accountability for the real brains of the trillion-peso heist under the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
While Lacson defended the report, its detractors called it performative, protecting Marcos and his allies while scapegoating mid-level players.
It called for preliminary investigations or case buildups against implicated senators such as Joel Villanueva, Francis Escudero and Jinggoy Estrada, who are lined up as sacrificial lambs.
The cited lawmakers, including fugitive former representative Zaldy Co, were referred to the filing authority — the Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Ombudsman.
The report also urged the resignation of officials like ex-DPWH Secretary Manuel Bonoan and recommended cases of plunder and graft based on affidavits detailing kickbacks and ghost projects.
The report, lame as it is, pales in comparison to the outcome of the two oral arguments the Supreme Court called on the challenges raised on the 2024, 2025 and 2026 General Appropriations Acts.
Thus far, the High Tribunal’s consultations have made a clear connection between the massive pilferage of the yearly budget through Unprogrammed Appropriations (UA) and the suitcases of cash fattening legislators and the Palace apex.
The UA was created as standby funds, activated only for contingencies such as excess revenue collections, new loans, or grants, providing fiscal flexibility without requiring new legislation.
Solicitor General Darlene Berberabe defended the UA as “aspirational savings.” Still, budget experts said it has been turned into a mechanism to create room for pet projects of members of Congress and other allies through insertions.
In a visit to the DAILY TRIBUNE, Caloocan Rep. Egay Erice said UA volumes surged to a record P807 billion in 2023, undermining checks and balances by enabling executive discretion without full congressional itemization.
The SC debates also exposed the root of the manipulation as being the absence of a dedicated budget law.
The 1987 Constitution lacks provisions for the UA, leading to disputes over whether it is a standby fund or a resurrection of the pork barrel system, which the SC had declared unconstitutional in 2013.
Without a clear law, Congress exploited bicameral conference committee processes for patronage, transferring funds into the UA for kickbacks, ghost projects, and substandard infrastructure, reviving the PDAF-like corruption under Marcos.
UA releases rely on opaque Bureau of Treasury certifications and DBM approvals.
Marcos signed P213.8 billion in UA for DPWH infrastructure in 2023 and 2024, negotiated secretly between executive officials and legislators, evading the transparency required for programmed funds.
This was before his August 2025 revelation that 15 out of 2,409 accredited contractors had cornered about P100 billion, or 20 percent, of P545.65 billion in Department of Public Works and Highways flood control projects from July 2022 to May 2025.
It would be the height of stupidity to argue that Marcos was unaware of the P1 trillion in projects diverted to the pork barrel in the yearly budget.
By signing the yearly GAA, he was part of the atrocious racket contrary to what Lacson’s report wants the public to swallow.