by Diego Morra
The Makabayan bloc has condemned President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s veto of funds for worker salaries and terminal leave benefits of retiring civilian and uniformed personnel in the 2026 national budget, describing Malacanang’s action as a “brutal betrayal” of public servants and a performative skit to delude the people and show that a token gesture could mollify an angry people furious about the extant pork barrel in the 2026 General Appropriations Act (GAA.)
House Deputy Minority Leader and ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. Antonio Tinio slammed the veto of P43.245 billion intended for personnel services requirements under the Unprogrammed Appropriations (UA.) This, Tinio explained, would direly affect 259,000 contract-of-service (COS) workers and over 41,000 professors and staffers in state universities and colleges (SUCs) already trapped under conditions of arduous contractual work with very low pay. in contractual work with low pay.” The balance of P32.472 billion is reserved for the terminal leave benefits of retiring civilian and uniformed personnel. What this means is that those who have to mandatorily leave their jobs will have to do so without being paid their separation benefits promptly.
By transferring both the P43.245 billion and the P32.472 billion from the National Expenditure Program (NEP) to the UA only for the same allocations to be vetoed showed that there is little compassion for the lowly COS workers and the aging employees who had served the best years of their lives as public servants. Is this the perverse result of the administration’s obsession with optimization of the work force? Tinio, Kabataan Rep. Renee Co and Gabriela Rep. Sarah Elago argued that there is nothing noble about the big splash about the veto of P92.5-billion in the UA since it is nothing but “pampalubag-loob,” a drop in the bucket, so to speak, as all other forms of pork barrel have been retained.
Compared to the vetoed allocations in last year’s budget that was pegged by ABS-CBN at P168-billion and by the hypercalculators of the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) at P194-billion, the P92.5-billion surely is peanuts in relation to the “liempo,” “pata,” “kasim” and other pork cuts in the 2026 national budget. There was nothing in the presidential message that explained why the funds for lowly public servants were scratched while the DPWH “allocables” for lawmakers were not touched. The P92.5 billion veto of unprogrammed appropriations in the 2026 budget was described by the bloc as “nothing but “pampalubag-loob” (a token gesture) meant to distract from billions in “pork barrel” funds that remain untouched in the signed budget. To correct this injustice, the Makabayan lawmakers asked the Palace to submit a supplemental budget to restore the necessary funds for worker salaries and benefits.
Rather than enact a budget that hews closely to sustained job generation for both industry and agriculture, what the state did was to entrench the despised pork barrel system, intensify patronage politics and invest in political dynasties and throw the people’s interest under the bus. “The veto of P92.5 billion in unprogrammed appropriations does not change the fundamental character of this budget. It remains a budget designed for the political survival of the Marcos administration, a budget that enables systemic corruption, and a budget that prioritizes the interests of the few over the needs of the many,” the Makabayan bloc argued. “Walang pagbabago, walang reporma, walang hustisya. Only the continuation of a corrupt, anti-people system that has plagued this country for decades,” it added.
Instead of heeding the people’s clamor, Makabayan said, Malacanang and Congress instead sneered and it increased the “ayuda” funds to a whopping ₱138-billion from the original proposal in the NEP. The “liempo,” “pata” and “kasim” pork cuts will come with copious servings this year, thanks to a regime that hears the people’s cry and would reply in kind. Some people have become obdurate and have gone beyond redemption. The seventh circle of hell in Dante’s Inferno beckons. For the nonce, Malacanang should issue a footnote to this “wow, mali” budget. Surely, the Makabayan lawmakers are asking: Why allow the same pork barrel that plundered billions in taxpayer money from flood control projects (FCPs) be resurrected through its “soft” and “hard” editions? Surely, progressive lawmakers are out to shine a relentless light to drive away the darkness that hides a rational, efficient and effective budget process.
They are not the kind of revolutionary that Mohammed Rashid Rida thought of: “A revolutionary for the sake of an ignorant society, is like a man who sets his body on fire to light the way for a blind man.” The Makabayan lawmakers and other organizations have actually been shining the light on the budget process for a long time but the Philippine government has been deaf to their pleas and blind to their evidence that the annual national budget makes the world of grafters go round. “The President’s refusal to touch this system reveals his true priority: Maintaining Malacañang’s hold on Congress through the distribution of billions in infrastructure funds… Only the preservation of a corrupt system that keeps him in power,” the group added.
The group criticized Marcos for highlighting the Local Government Support Fund (LGSF) in his budget message. “As if the P73.2 billion in LGU pork- including the P15.33 billion Disaster Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Assistance Program carved out of the calamity fund- were something to be proud of,” Makabayan said. “Ipinagmamalaki pa ang pork barrel. This is not support for local governments. This is a tool for political control, a mechanism to reward allies and punish critics, and a fund prone to abuse and corruption at every level of government,” it said. Makabayan also slammed the P8-billion Support to Barangay Development Program under the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) that duplicates the programs and projects already being pursued by LGUs and other agencies and bankrolls red-tagging, intimidation and coercive actions against rural and indigenous communities and more than P11 billion in confidential and intelligence funds and the redundant Presidential Assistance to Farmers and Fisherfolk. Band-aid programs like the Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situation (AICS), Medical Assistance to Indigent and Financially Incapacitated Patients (MAIFIP), and the Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers (TUPAD.) Doleouts do not solve chronic poverty, Makabayan concluded.
