Money heist

What we’re seeing now is a jaw-dropping money heist involving our education and health care budgets.

- IRIS GONZALES

This is a test case for President Marcos. He must fix this immediately if only to prove that he meant it when he said that he wants to see every Filipino thrive and not just survive.

Slashing the budgets for education and health care, however, clearly goes against this and would, in fact, pull us back further than we already are.

Where will these budget cuts go? Where else but to the projects of lawmakers as they try to win desperate voters ahead of the 2025 mid-term elections and later on, the 2028 elections.

The result is a continuous cycle of patronage politics.

Education budget

The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has a proposed budget of P825 billion; our lawmakers added P289 billion to raise the budget to P1.1 trillion.

There is reason to be wary about this, especially as these funds would likely go to more flood control projects and enable lawmakers to pocket billions from kickbacks.

These projects, after all, are sources of kickbacks because they are difficult to monitor: river dredging, flood-gates, seawalls and what-have-you.

And then there’s also the favorite source of kickbacks as exposed by Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong – cat’s eyes and highway rock nettings.

Where do the kickbacks go? Perhaps to more hidden wealth for these corrupt politicians, upscale homes in posh residential enclaves abroad, private jets maybe, or to multimillion peso designer bags for their wives and mistresses.

ECC: Early campaign contribution