House budget insertions reached P1 trillion – watchdog

MANILA, Philippines — The House-approved version of the P7.2-trillion 2027 national budget contains “red flag” levels of insertions worth over P1 trillion, including around 7,000 infrastructure projects totaling P190 billion, a budget watchdog said.

“The lawmakers padded numerous infrastructure projects without any details. In the House version, they augmented by P43 billion the multipurpose buildings in the budget of the DPWH (Department of Public Works and Highways), which also included access roads and bridges to basic infrastructure program,” People’s Budget Coalition (PBC)’s Kenneth Isaiah Abante told the Senate committee on finance yesterday.

Abante said allocations for the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situations (AICS) and the Department of Health’s Medical Assistance to Indigent and Financially Incapacitated Patients (MAIFIP) both went up by P24 billion.

A separate allocation of P10 billion was also included for Presidential Assistance to Farmers and Fisherfolk (PAFF).

Abante said these questionable allocations sacrificed more noble programs for education, transportation, health and disaster risk reduction, among others.

“They made a substantial reduction in foreign-assisted projects, about P27 billion in the Laguna Lakeshore Road, nearly P20 billion in the Metro Manila Subway, a P15-billion cut in the budget for the North-South Commuter Rail project and P10-billion cut in pension and gratuity,” he noted.

“And this is the worst – P7.75 billion cut from the National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council fund,” he said. “We don’t agree with the prioritization of the House for those multipurpose buildings, which we believe is not at all an urgent need of our citizens.”

Hard, soft, shadow pork

Breaking down the more than P1 trillion of flagged insertions, PBC co-convenor AJ Montesa said it is composed of P695 billion in “hard pork” for “politicized infrastructure,” P210-billion “soft pork” or “patronage-driven ayuda” and P112-billion “shadow pork” tucked in unprogrammed appropriations.

Montesa said the “soft pork barrel” increases by the House were for discretionary programs such as AICS, MAIFIP, PAFF, the Department of Labor and Employment’s Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers (TUPAD) and Commission on Higher Education’s Tulong Dunong program.

While the subsidy for state insurer Philippine Health insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) was cut from P129.8 billion in 2026 to P74.4 billion in the National Expenditure Program, the House did not increase its funding, opting instead to double the MAIFIP budget to P49.2 billion.

The group scored the MAIFIP as a program that encourages indigent patients to seek favors from politicians by asking for guarantee letters.

“The House wants us to get sick so we can beg them to pay for our hospital bills,” Montesa said. “Are we building a system that guarantees people their rights, or one that leaves them dependent on political favors?”

In the DPWH budget alone, the House inserted 6,200 projects – most of which are multipurpose buildings – worth P172 billion.

Other insertions included over 180 health facilities worth P2 billion in the DOH budget; over 350 farm-to-market roads worth P6 billion in the Department of Agriculture budget and over 200 irrigation projects worth P7 billion in the National Irrigation Administration budget.

House Majority Leader Sandro Marcos topped the list of DPWH projects “inserted” in the House General Appropriations Bill with 405 projects worth P4.37 billion going to the 1st district of Ilocos Norte.

The 6th district of Isabela, represented by Speaker Faustino Dy III, ranked fourth in the PBC’s list of DPWH project insertions, with the 147 DPWH projects worth P1.68 billion shared with Isabela 4th district Rep. Joseph Tan.

House appropriations committee chair and Nueva Ecija 1st district Rep. Mikaela Suansing ranked seventh in the list, but she also shared the P1.35 billion worth of 107 DPWH projects with the Nueva Ecija 2nd district.

Batangas 2nd district Rep. Gerville Luistro ranked eighth in the list with her fifth district counterpart with P1.31 billion worth of 77 projects.

The PBC clarified that their figures on budget insertions were based on budgets to DPWH district offices, not to the district representatives themselves, and thus are not “evidence of wrongdoing.”

As for the “shadow pork,” the PBC said unprogrammed appropriations – recently flagged by the Supreme Court as an unconstitutional way of bloating the 2024 national budget – became a “dumping ground” for foreign-assisted projects because these were not included in the programmed budget, causing further delays in implementation.

‘Mini-Zaldy Co budget’

Describing the 2027 spending plan as a “mini-Zaldy Co budget,” Caloocan 2nd district Rep. Edgar Erice lambasted in particular the P62-billion Local Government Support Fund (LGSF), which he said will not necessarily trickle down to local government units (LGUs) across the country.

“It (LGSF) did not result in the equitable distribution of funds for LGUs. And it is not consistent with the national fiscal program. The guidelines are all-encompassing with the government projects,” he told Bilyonaryo News Channel.

“This is also the reason why I call it (LGSF) the President’s pork barrel, precisely because it is by nature a discretionary fund of the President: he sets the identification of the project, sets the amount for the project and decides when to release the funds,” Erice explained. — Marc Jayson Cayabyab