Inquirer·Philippines·

Palace: Budget red flags can lead again to Marcos veto

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Luisa Cabato

MANILA, Philippines — President Marcos will not hesitate to exercise his veto power to remove questionable allocations from the proposed P7.2-trillion national budget for 2027, Malacañang said on Tuesday, after civil society watchdogs flagged more than P1 trillion in allegedly irregular spending and pork-barrel items in the House-approved version of the measure.

Palace press officer Claire Castro said Marcos would not allow budget amendments that lack proper documentation, clear project descriptions and legitimate purposes.

She stressed that public funds must benefit Filipinos rather than serve private or political interests.

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In January this year, Marcos vetoed almost P92.5 billion involving mostly unprogrammed appropriations from the P6.793-trillion 2026 General Appropriations Act. The amount was, however, less than half of the P319 billion worth of “highly questionable” items flagged by Social Watch Philippines (SWP), a group founded by former national treasurer Leonor Briones.

Flagged items

The People’s Budget Coalition (PBC) and other groups have identified more than P1 trillion in allocations they find questionable or potentially vulnerable to political patronage and discretionary spending.

They classified the flagged items into three categories: P695 billion in so-called hard pork, P210 billion in soft pork and P112 billion in shadow pork.

Hard pork covers allegedly politicized and inadequately vetted infrastructure projects, particularly congressional insertions in public works and agriculture programs.

Among the concerns are farm-to-market roads and irrigation projects with reportedly incomplete supporting documents, unclear technical descriptions and questionable implementation details. Some projects allegedly carried inaccurate geographic coordinates, including locations that appeared to fall in bodies of water, while others had costs substantially above prevailing standards.

The coalition also questioned more than 350 farm-to-market road projects worth nearly P6 billion inserted into the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) proposed allocations, as well as thousands of projects under the DPWH.

Soft pork, estimated at P210 billion, covers financial assistance, social welfare and livelihood programs that watchdogs said could be vulnerable to patronage through lawmakers’ discretionary referrals.

The remaining P112 billion, classified as shadow pork, consists of unprogrammed appropriations and standby allocations that critics said could allow spending decisions without sufficiently defined projects or safeguards.

More than 30 business and civil society organizations earlier called on Congress to reject budget insertions lacking technical justification, warning against a repeat of the ghost and substandard flood control projects exposed in previous corruption controversies.

The groups specifically flagged more than P180 billion in additions to the proposed DPWH budget, an agency at the center of the flood control corruption scandal.

No interference

Despite the mounting concerns, Malacañang maintained that Marcos would not interfere in the budget deliberations of the House and the Senate.

Castro said the examination and reconciliation of proposed appropriations remained the responsibility of Congress, with the measure still subject to bicameral conference committee deliberations and review by the President’s economic team before it reaches Marcos for signing.

“The President will not interfere with the work of Congress. This is not the time for the President to intervene; if he were to engage with them or meddle in the work of the House of Representatives or the Senate, people would call him a dictator, yet if he chooses not to interfere, you would say he doesn’t care,” she said.

However, Castro stressed that Marcos retained the authority to reject questionable provisions when the final budget reaches his desk.

“We know that when the President needs to exercise his veto power, he does so. That is precisely what we should expect from the President, as he himself has stated that public funds must not be wasted or abused,” she said.

The Palace also reiterated Marcos’ position that Congress should retain the priority projects proposed by the executive branch under the National Expenditure Program, warning that indiscriminate cuts could delay or derail programs intended for completion during his administration.

Castro urged lawmakers to preserve legitimate executive projects while ensuring that questionable additions undergo proper scrutiny.

Senate finance committee leaders and other senators have pledged to review the House-approved spending plan and remove questionable insertions and inadequately vetted lump-sum allocations during Senate and bicameral deliberations.

Marcos’ warning follows his decision to veto nearly P92.5 billion in allocations from the 2026 national budget, largely involving unprogrammed appropriations.

When he signed the P6.793-trillion 2026 General Appropriations Act on Jan. 5, Marcos stressed that unprogrammed appropriations should not be treated as discretionary funds.

“The unprogrammed appropriations are not blank checks. We will not allow the unprogrammed appropriations to be misused or treated as a backdoor for discretionary spending,” he said.

House transparency

The controversy has also prompted criticism from lawmakers over the manner in which House leaders finalized amendments to the proposed 2027 budget.

Deputy Speaker Ronaldo Puno said transparency had been denied not only to the public but also to members of the House, many of whom were allegedly unaware of the details of the allocations approved by the chamber.

“Transparency has not only been denied by the House leadership to the general public. It has also denied this to its own members,” Puno told the Inquirer.

He credited PBC’s examination of the House version of the budget bill with exposing allocations that most lawmakers had not known about.

“They were able to uncover information in the [House version] that 90 percent or more of our congressmen were unaware of,” Puno said, adding that even members of the House appropriations committee were surprised by the coalition’s findings.

Navotas Rep. Toby Tiangco also questioned the process, describing the way House budget amendments were finalized as an act of bad faith.

He cited the budget amendments review subcommittee, which made P116.32 billion in adjustments to the spending bill. Independent PBC estimates placed total legislative amendments at nearly P200 billion.

Tiangco questioned the exclusion of nonmembers from the subcommittee’s deliberations, saying the practice departed from the traditionally open nature of committee proceedings.

Caloocan Rep. Edgar Erice likewise criticized the process, saying the subcommittee had effectively become a small group responsible for inserting projects into several agencies, including the DPWH, DA, National Irrigation Administration, Department of Health and Department of Social Welfare and Development.

Puno said his National Unity Party welcomed the opportunity to discuss the coalition’s findings, adding that the review could benefit lawmakers and the public.

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With the Senate and bicameral deliberations still ahead, the proposed budget faces mounting pressure to ensure that allocations are properly documented, technically justified, and directed toward legitimate public projects. —With a report from Kenneth Christiane Basilio

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