I have been studying the budget every year since 2013, and even more closely since the pandemic in 2020.

And this budget that just passed the bicameral conference committee of both houses of Congress (bicam) is one of the worst budgets I have ever seen. There are some budget items worth celebrating: an initial fund for animal welfare programs pushed by Senator Grace Poe, a small but severely slashed fund for green infrastructure for local governments. There are also some good investments going into the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao’s state universities and colleges (SUCs).

But we cannot be content planting small trees as the forest burns to the ground. In this budget, the bad outweighs the good by orders of magnitude.

Let us call on President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to bring back the budget bill to the bicam and pressure Congress to restore good executive and civil society proposals by cutting out the unconscionable congressional pork in ayuda and public works.

Why will this bicam budget harm you and your loved ones, dear reader, if the President signs this budget?

Scraps of congressional pork

At the macro level: the 2025 bicam version is a budget that kills. It will rob us of our dignity as it forces us to grovel for scraps of congressional pork when we’re supposed to receive it automatically as programs. It will widen the gap between the rich and the poor. It will institutionalize corruption, patronage, vote-buying. It’s terrible use of our taxpayer money.

This budget also reflects Congress’s refusal to do what the President asked them to do in his State of the Nation Address and pronouncements: address the learning and malnutrition crises, bridge the digital divide, protect our kids, promote universal health care, make bike lanes permanent, prioritize public transport, cut poverty and inequality, achieve sustainable development goals, protect the West Philippine Sea.

More specifically:

1. It will kill patients.

• Zero Philhealth subsidy, which endangers the ability of the system to pay insurance liabilities; 
• Universal health care law and sin tax laws are violated, according to the Sin Tax Coalition Bawas Bisyo and many professional healthcare associations;
• Subsidy should have gone to an even greater expansion of health benefits for everyone, especially the poor, not to the unconstitutional, unethical, undignified scheme where we’re forced to beg representatives to issue guarantee letters to release medical assistance.
• The practice of guarantee letters (where Congress de facto approves the release of individual medical claims under the medical assistance to indigent patients) is unconstitutional because it violates separation of powers between executive and legislative. It is ripe for a constitutional challenge.
• There are many programs that act under this pork scheme this as well, beyond health, like AKAP (Ayuda sa Kapos ang Kita Program), and these, too, are unconstitutional.

2. It will worsen the learning crisis and widen the learning divide.

• Massive cuts in the Department of Education (DepEd) budget for computers, learning materials and inputs; 
• Insufficient funds for school reconstruction and disaster reconstruction after typhoons; 
• Huge budget cuts to Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (Tesda) and the Commission on Higher Education (CHED);
• Raised no less than by Education Secretary Sonny Angara and Education Commission 2 (Edcom2) themselves, ignoring a lot of the investments we education researchers commissioned by Edcom2 have recommended;
• In total, major education agency budgets (DepEd, Tesda, and CHED) were cut, while direct downloads to SUCs were increased;
• There is a total net decrease in the education budget vs the House version of the budget bill.
• The Department of Education budget was cut by P11.6 billion. Basic education facilities (school buildings, furniture, electrification) cut by P8.8 billion.
• SUCs up by P7.2 billion. The University of the Philippines system cut by P0.6 billion, while most SUCs increased, especially BARMM (+P3 billion).
• TESDA cut by P1.1 billion, mostly removal of free tertiary education support.
• CHED cut by P26.9 billion, mostly removal of free tertiary education support.

3. It will worsen traffic, the epidemic of road crash death and injury, while delaying many public transport projects.

• Zero service contracts which the National Confederation of TransportWorkers Union – NCTU decries as unjust;
• Near-zero bike lane investments;
• Zero road safety budget provisions;
• Bloated unprogrammed appropriations will delay many public transport infrastructure projects as Congress continued to transfer important government investments to unprogrammed appropriations;
• No separate line item provision for the Pasig River esplanade, stoking fears that the Pasig River Expressway and other terrible infrastructure projects will proceed, despite the President and First Lady’s opposition to the destructive project

4. It will put disaster prone communities at greater risk.

• It cuts funding for important scientific projects like community-based early warnings for landslides, like the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismologys’ Dynaslope Project. 
• Cut to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Fund, despite massive damages due to typhoons especially in our experience at the Tarabangan-Bicol Disaster Volunteer Network. 

5. It systematizes vote buying and corruption during an election year, all while making people dependent on pork for elections

• 4Ps budget cut near half from P114.2 billion to P64.2 billion, which the Samahan ng Nagkakaisang Pamilya ng Pantawid decries; 
• AKAP budget cut from P39.0 billion to P26.2 billion, but still a massive amount (social protection advocates consider this pork where congress can influence beneficiary lists), since these do not have as stringent professional criteria or even evidence of effectiveness as 4Ps;
• DPWH projects up by P288.6 billion, which were not in the original executive proposal, especially worrisome during this election time as Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong of Mayors for Good Governance says corruption can go up as high as 70% of contract costs.

What a terrible message this sends to voters as we enter the 2025 midterm season.

This is an administration that breaks its campaign promises.

This is especially heartbreaking to those of us who are survivors of recent typhoons and disasters, and have been exhausted doing relief and recovery work in our communities.

It’s been quite a few years that I’ve been taking a temperature on civil society movements.

And across partisan and ideological and class divides: people are very, very angry.

It’s not too late to change this. Let’s all channel our energies to call on the President to return the budget bill to the bicam and craft a budget that will truly serve our people, not just the interests of the rich and powerful few. – Rappler.com

Kenneth Isaiah Ibasco Abante coordinates the Citizens’ Budget Tracker, a community of volunteers tracking the budget since the COVID-19 pandemic. He served in various leadership roles in the Department of Finance from 2012 to 2016, including chief-of-staff to senior officials and lead technical staff for national budget hearings. He has taught quantitative methods at mid-career master in public administration summer program at the Harvard Kennedy School since 2022. He was named one of The Outstanding Young Men of the Philippines in 2023 for socio-civic and voluntary leadership.