Governance

Do our government leaders know what they are doing? That is, other than enriching themselves at the expense of the national good?

- BOO CHANCO

What happened with the 2025 National Budget is Exhibit “A.”

BBM said infrastructure programs are a priority, especially the rail transport systems for Metro Manila. But the budget he eventually signed relegated our counterpart funding for these ODA-assisted projects to the unappropriated section.

Donor agencies like JICA have reason to wonder what's wrong with us. They are faithfully funding projects we urgently need, using the taxes the Japanese people paid and we don’t seem grateful enough to do our part of the deal.

Baba Takashi, JICA’s Chief Representative, diplomatically wondered about that in a recent speech at the Philippine Development Forum. Your budget priorities are often not aligned with your Philippine Development Plan, he observed.

Of course. The priorities set in our budget by our legislators with the connivance of DBM and BBM himself are pork barrel projects. To create fiscal space for pork, counterpart funding for ODA-sponsored infrastructure projects were relegated to unprogrammed status. Bahala na kung may pera pa.

But pork projects with no feasibility studies, no detailed engineering and are not even part of the national development plan are assured of funding. The intention is just to collect the funding, ghost projects lang.

Mr. Baba said: “We find that while the Philippine development plan sets the strategic direction, its alignment with the national budget is not always strong. This has caused delays in projects supported by Official Development Assistance (ODA).”

Naku! Mahiya naman sana ang mga opisyales natin. Tinutulungan na nga tayo, binababoy pa natin yung tulong nila.

Mr. Baba also noted the poor coordination by core government agencies, leading to inefficiencies in project rollouts.