Pork

I once intently observed a friend patiently scrape the fat off the lechon skin he was about to consume.

- ALEX MAGNO

The sight made me sad.

It was a futile exercise. The same may be said about the 2025 budget signed yesterday with little aplomb. Some of the most obvious fat was scraped off to ward off the critics. But, on the whole, this remains the most scandalous pork barrel budget we ever had.

Having passively allowed the legislators to mangle the national budget to fund patronage but not progress, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. could not muster the boldness to return this monstrosity back to that branch of government for recasting. The politicians will still get their pork—albeit with the thin veil of closer monitoring by the agencies of the executive branch.

Presidential review of the budget bill is a weak chisel. The best the President can do is to veto some line items. He cannot restore funding for agencies that truly need them.

Whatever his reservations about the budget may be, the President is captive to it. After the bill passed the bicameral conference committee shortly before the holidays, the Chief Executive was hostage to it—unless he dared return the bill and inevitably force reenactment of this year's budget.

Marcos made it immediately clear that reenactment was out of the question. From then on, it was evident the presidential review process will be limited to a few cosmetic changes that does not substantially alter the character of this Frankenstein of a budget.

Administration officials try to assure us that "implementing guidelines" will soon be issued to ensure that expenditure of the allotments will be prudent. Such guidelines, we know from long experience, consistently failed to rein in plunder.