Watchers kept from the window

Deliberations at the House of Representatives on its budget for 2027 came with a published assurance that citizens will have a chance to ask questions before the public purse is opened.

Thus the abrupt decision to hasten the plenary deliberations on the chamber’s budget — from 24 September to 17 September — announced only the night before and confirmed to civil society groups barely twelve hours earlier, was thought to be a calculated act of evasion, revealing what the chamber actually thinks of the people it claims to serve.

Navotas Rep. Toby Tiangco was not alone in raising the alarm. Other budget watchers, including the People’s Budget Coalition, who witnessed the maneuver unfold, reached the same uncomfortable conclusion: it was an unending effort to pad the House budget beyond what the National Expenditure Program proposed.

The allocations to the House grew by P1 billion to P3 billion annually between 2015 and 2021, then by P12 billion in 2023, P12.5 billion the following year, P17.3 billion after that, and P10.5 billion this year.

Because the notice arrived after the deadline, the rule ensured that no civil society organization could appear and no questions could be submitted.

The timing revealed the hidden agenda: while other departments and agencies had their budget hearings moved before, this shift touched only the House’s own allocation.

The same chamber is now asking for P18.2 billion, an amount that will presumably swell further once the 2027 General Appropriations Act (GAA) is finalized, if precedent holds.

Previous adjustments were made in parallel to billions of pesos in projects benefiting so-called “cong-tractors” linked to the flood control scandal. Those were indirectly considered to be a pork barrel.

Moving up the budget calendar by a week not only denied budget watchdogs the chance to prepare questions in advance, it announced that scrutiny was unwelcome. An institution under investigation for the alleged theft of public funds should not be handed a larger budget without being asked why.

A legislative body that controls both the size and the shape of its appropriations controls, by extension, the discretionary pools from which patronage is most easily dispensed, such as through “ayuda” distribution, timed to coincide with a candidate’s need for visibility.

The chamber has every incentive to shield itself from the very civil society groups whose questions might expose it.

If the pattern of Unprogrammed Appropriations that had swollen the national budget in recent years has taught us anything, it is that funds without clear conditions attached tend, eventually, to find their way toward whoever holds the pen when the money is finally released.

The question is not whether the House can justify an P18.2-billion budget. Institutions will always ask for what they believe they can get. The more important question is whether the public will be allowed to ask why the money is needed — and scrutinize how it will be spent — before committing a single peso.

The 2027 House budget, moreover, cannot be treated as a routine appropriation. It must also be viewed as a rehearsal for 2028.

A chamber writing its own check has already shown how little scrutiny it is prepared to tolerate when its own interests and political survival are at stake.