Cartoon By: Aaron Paul C. Caril
EDITORIAL
Smells like pork: The meteoric rise of unprogrammed funds
The Executive Branch under President Bongbong Marcos requested only P281.9 billion in unprogrammed funds for 2024, but Congress gave P449.54 billion more. So, a total of P731.44 billion of unprogrammed funds are at the government’s disposal a year before the 2025 midterm elections.
Bayan Muna Partylist calls the budget insertion insidious and accuses the bicameral conference committee of abusing its power to insert provisions not contained in the approved bills.
The party-list group added that the increase becomes more insidious not only because it is reserved for pork barrel projects but also because it increases our national debt and budget deficit, making it a monster pork barrel.
Another party-list group, the ACT Teachers party list, said that unprogrammed funds are actually pork barrel funds because President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. can reallocate funds from government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs) to items he prefers, making the appropriations discretionary.
But no less than House Speaker Martin Romualdez has disputed that the unprogrammed funds are pork barrel funds. “I think if we’ll look at the definition, there is really no pork because that contemplates on the amendments or post-enactment of the budget where the allocations are being changed.”
The unprogrammed funds are so far the most perverse metamorphosis of the pork barrel funds, which the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional in Belgica v. Ochoa in 2013. For years, the unprogrammed funds were not given much public attention, possibly because there has been virtually no difference between the amount proposed by the President and the amount approved by Congress.
The pork barrel system was heavily criticized in the past because public coffers were used to bolster political patronage. In 2024, when national and local politicians are in dire need of election funding and local pet projects to add to their long list of accomplishments, the president-proposed P822 billion fund of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH)was increased by P176 billion to support infrastructure projects–the biggest Congressional insertion across all agencies.
As observers put it, infrastructure projects are the most preferred mode of bribery and kickbacks in local scenes, where local units and contractors connive to exchange favors. The meteoric rise in the unprogrammed funds allows politicians to augment the funds in their districts aimed at boosting patronage.
By constitutional fiat, Congress holds the power of the purse since it approves the budget submitted by the other branches of government. The executive department executes the government’s expenditure program and disburses the budget approved by Congress. With P731.44 billion of unprogrammed funds, it becomes quite obvious why we are seeing the exodus of local politicians to the ruling administration party.
One well-respected jurist describes the outlawed pork barrel system as a calamity caused by greed and abuse of power. It was then the said jurist’s aspiration that after Belgica, we become better, we set things right. He was wrong. Like recidivists, we keep doing the same thing, hoping that it becomes the new norm by repeatedly doing so.