President‘s pork cooks

It is hard to anticipate how the dirty minds of a government corruption syndicate operate.

The Supreme Court (SC) gutted the pork barrel system in 2013, but the architects of the pilferage of the public purse did not disappear. They mutated the Unprogrammed Appropriations (UA) into a repository for discretionary funds, finding another channel to make public money available with less scrutiny.

The flood control scandal, as alleged in ongoing investigations, exposed how the UA was used to channel enormous sums into public works. It helped turn the Department of Public Works and Highways into what critics have described as a trillion-peso graft machine.

The names, mechanisms and labels may change. The appetite for public money does not.

Budget watchers are now focused on the Local Government Support Fund (LGSF) which has grown like the UA since 2025 when the standby allocations were linked to Floodgate.

In 2025, LGSF spending totaled P23 billion, jumped to P57.88 billion this year, while the proposed 2027 budget carries another P58 billion.

In three years, P140 billion shall have flowed through a fund that Congress does not control after it is appropriated. A Department of Budget and Management circular governing the release of the LSGF allows for it to finance almost anything — agriculture, infrastructure, direct cash aid, assistance to indigent families.

The LGSF appears to be funds those in power can decide how to spend.

The SC struck down the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) because it was a post-enactment legislative identification of specific projects, which the Constitution does not allow.

The LGSF does not give legislators discretion over it, but it names the President, making it a “presidential pork barrel,” or a budget within a budget, immune to congressional oversight once disbursed.

A classic example is Naga City, which received P500 million from the fund supposedly to retrofit the city’s coliseum. The decision to bestow the huge amount on Naga was not based on any formula, since it is a fiscally healthy city with no deficit, as Mayor Leni Robredo trumpets whenever she has the chance.

It just happens that Robredo is being groomed to be a UniTeam bet.

Quezon City, touted as the country’s wealthiest local government — sitting on a P40.6-billion budget and P6.7 billion in national tax allotments — still drew P937 million from the LGSF.

Much of it funded rice distribution and food assistance, the kind of ayuda a wealthy metropolis should least need subsidizing through a supplemental fund meant, ostensibly, for local government support.

In 2025, when the money moved by informal request, utilization sat near 50 percent.

In 2026, however, facing growing criticism, the disbursement shifted toward uniform in-kind transfers like 40 kilos of rice per recipient nationwide, and P200,000 per barangay split between micro-scholarships and unrestricted spending.

The unrestricted money, or straight doles, built roadside monoliths and decorative installations rather than paid for services. Pampanga received P880 million from the fund; Bulacan, P879 million; Nueva Ecija, P751 million.

Batangas, home province of Executive Secretary Ralph Recto, received P1.8 billion; Cavite, P1.098 billion; and Laguna, P1.08 billion.

The list did not include the country’s most impoverished provinces. It did include vote-rich regions ahead of the 2028 polls, when the administration’s congressional majority and gubernatorial alliances will again be tested at the ballot.

The massive reallocation for patronage is happening as the country’s fiscal space for 2027 is projected at just 16 percent of the national budget. Of that narrow window, 37 percent is committed to pork-related allocations, with the LGSF chief among them.

Meanwhile, the same 2027 budget zeroes out hospital “zero billing” allocations, according to Caloocan Rep. Egay Erice.

Funding for classroom construction and the Department of Education’s feeding program was also slashed by more than half, cutting back support for programs that directly affect children and schools.

Projects such as busways and EDSA-adjacent works were left unfunded in favor of new, unstudied projects that the President can later designate.

From one theft modus to another, the greed of those in power is relentless.