After BBM's Cosmetic Veto, Budget Still Crookedest Ever

"Veto" was a brand of underarm cream in the 1960s. President Bongbong Marcos' partial veto of the 2025 budget attempts to deodorize.

- JARIUS BONDOC

But the stink lingers because BBM didn't veto Congress' illegal insertions. It remains the crookedest budget in history, UP economics Prof. Cielo Magno laments.

BBM is complicit in plunder for retaining these pork barrels:

• House of Reps' last-minute addition of P17.37 billion to its approved P16.3 billion. Thus, more than doubling it to P33.67 billion;

• Senate's own addition of P1.1 billion, also without public hearings, to its original P12.8 billion, making it P13.9 billion;

• Ayuda sa Kapos Ang Kita Program, P26 billion for vote-buying by BBM's political dynastic allies during the 2025 election campaign;

BBM made a show of vetoing only two items:

(1) P26 billion in ghost flood works, to feign constitutionality.

Congress' bicameral conference of two had added P288 billion to DPWH's P825 billion, bloating it to P1.113 trillion.

It slashed DepEd, CHED, TESDA, state universities and colleges to P913 billion.

That violated the Constitution's Article XIV, Section 5 which requires highest budgetary priority for education.

No problem, BBM resorted to what economist JC Punongbayan, PhD, calls "grand dagdag-bawas."