A behaved budget

When we were kids, whenever unruly, we were admonished, under pain of penalty, by our parents and teachers to “behave, behave.”

- TONY LOPEZ

This year, the Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (Bagong Pilipinas) administration has effectively told its 2026 budget to , “behave, behave.” :

This is after the 2025 budget turned out to be the most notorious and the most corrupt of all time — what with the horrendous pork senators and congressmen had access to, for over P500 billion of flood control money lost and for the astronomical amounts given for the perks, perfidies and perambulations of our senators and congressmen who have gone berserk with people’s money, among many other reasons.

For something that is inert, inanimate and without soul, telling the budget to “behave, behave” is bad English and barking up the wrong tree.

Obviously, you cannot tell our senators, congressmen and officials of the executive branch to “behave, behave.” Doing so would be akin to turning the world upside down. Because inherent in the DNA of our politicians, our legislators and executive officials is bad behavior, greed, rapacity. That is why the next best thing to do is instead tell the budget - behave, behave.

Can we really have a behaved budget? The dictionary suggests to prefix the adverb “well” or “badly” to make “pehaved” sound grammatical. So can we really have a “well behaved” budget? And how badly will our senators, congressmen and corrupt Cabinet people behave, given a well-behaved budget?

To his credit, President Marcos Jr. is optimistic. In his 13-minute speech after signing the 2026 budget law yesterday, BBM first acknowledged 2025 had tested the nation’s mettle.