Budget process under siege

Political party leaders in the House of Representatives, who initially moved to return the proposed 2026 National Expenditure Program (NEP) to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), have relented.

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Instead, the House will allow the DBM to address flaws in the NEP during the course of the budget hearings.

Had it pushed through, this would have been an unprecedented move that is laden with political consequence and public concern. Regardless, the move—ostensibly grounded in technical “infirmities” —is far more than an act of legislative housekeeping. It should serve as a wake-up call. This is a blistering indictment of a budget process increasingly viewed as opaque, transactional, and indifferent to the real struggles of the Filipino people.

At the heart of this controversy lies a chilling pattern: flood control projects carrying identical amounts; line items suspiciously duplicating already completed initiatives; bloated lump-sum allocations labeled vaguely as “nationwide” projects; unsolicited—and potentially unauthorized—multi-billion peso firearms procurements under the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the Philippine National Police (PNP); and allegations of “allocation-for-sale” schemes in the Department of Agriculture’s budget, commodifying public funds meant for life-changing farm-to-market roads.