Headscratcher

It was as if President Marcos Jr. put on a blindfold and chose random items in the budget bill to veto.

- ALEX MAGNO

It was that haphazard.The choice of items subjected to line-item vetoes did not justify the additional time the Office of the President asked for, ostensibly to run a fine-toothed comb over the enrolled bill.

To begin with, almost half of the vetoed items were in the National Expenditure Plan (NEP) submitted by the Office of the President to Congress. They were not insertions. The legislature did not invent them.

Most of the vetoed items were necessary spending. These include budgetary support to GOCCs; money owed LGUs over previous years; allocation for government personnel services requirements, including the filling of vacant positions; the CARS program that supports the automotive industry; the RACE program to support competitiveness in our automotive industry; insurance of government assets and interests; and the biggest item, government counterpart for foreign-assisted projects amounting to P35 billion.

These were not the items critics of the budget bill were opposing. The most controversial items involve the various “ayuda” programs that overlapped and had no rules-based system for disbursement.

For instance, 72 associations of medical professionals asked that the whimsical medical subsidies be vetoed. These controversial items were not only retained — they were increased by Congress and secured under the heading of programmed allocations.