By Diego Morra
So, Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin is apparently losing not only his sleep but also his logic after lawmakers questioned why completed projects in Marikina and Antipolo still had appropriations in the 2026 National Expenditure Plan (NEP), upon which the General Appropriations Bill (GAB) is based before it becomes a law signed by the president called the annual General Appropriations Act (GAA.)
If Malacanang were so sure that the NEP crafted by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), the Department of Economic Planning and Development (DepDev) and the Development Budget Coordinating Committee (DBCC), along with panels tasked by various departments to craft their proposed programs, projects and activities (PPAs) were lily-white, necessary and can be defended, then there is no reason why Bersamin and the various factions comprising the Marcos Jr. regime should howl to the high heavens that Congress should mind its own business, clean house and “scratch its own galis.”
As one of the leading lights of the Scintilla Juris fraternity at the University of the Philippines (UP) and as the “ponente” of the Supreme Court (SC) decision that “killed” pork barrel in the form of the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) in 2013, Bersamin should be asked why the pork barrel has been reincarnated to disastrously plunder taxpayer money through congressional insertions of flood control projects (FCPs) into the appropriations of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) as well as projects for the DSWD, DENR, DA and the Department of Health (DOH.) This is the reason why Filipino taxpayers subsidize the the campaign of Duterte Sen. Christopher Lawrence Tesoro Go (CLTG) to plaster the entire country with Malasakit Centers emblazoned with his name that duplicate the work of other agencies. Imagine allocating P3-billion for Go, a senator who has not crafted a single relevant law and who has to bring out pieces of paper to read when defending himself about his role in the P818-million infra projects in Davao.
Of course, the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) enjoys a bigger budget than smaller departments, with former DPWH secretary and now controversial Senator Mark Villar even bragging about completing 89 projects under his Tanging Imprakstruktura para sa Kapayapaan at Seguridad (TIKAS) in tandem with the military to boost its counter-insurgency campaign. Generals have their own pork barrel, too. But wait, local government units (LGUs), schools and barangays also contribute to NTF-ELCAC projects, draining them of vital resources. Budgetary power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
Despite his puppetry to China, Rodrigo Duterte institutionalized the US Counter-insurgency (Coin) strategy through Executive Order No. 70 (EO 70), a piece of presidential abuse that Marcos Jr. is loath to scrap. Similarly, Memorandum Circular No. 32, another Duterte issuance, is being implemented by the Marcos Jr. to reinforce bloody military-police counter-insurgency operations. It should be not a source of wonder how the Confidential and Intelligence Funds (CIF) of the Office of the President (OP) are being used to buttress covert operations against the Filipino people, indigenous communities and suspected insurgents,
Panahon na upang tumigil ang Gabinete ni Marcos Jr. sa pagtahol dahil lalo lamang nagkakasabit-sabit ang mga kongresista, senador, kontratista at opisyales ng DPWH sa pagtipak-tipak ng pondo ng FCPs. Sa katunayan, ang “dialectics” ng “graft” involves Malacanang, Congress and DPWH. Without the indispensable collaboration of the executive and legislative departments, there would be no insertions. DPWH pensil-pushers were dumbfounded when they found out that billions of pesos for FCPs were included in their 2025 budget and the power of the purse, which technically should be exercised by Congress, was lost during the Marcos Sr. fascist dictatorship. The plunder would not have worsened had lawmakers been true to their duty to craft budgets based on clear objectives to promote the people’s welfare, spur economic progress, prevent the recurrent scourge of floods and, perchance, develop the means develop agriculture and industry.
There is no such guiding principle in the fiscal philosophy of the government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP.) If there were, Marcos Jr. should have put his foot down on the annual miasma committed by the bicameral conference committee (BCC) that fiddles with approved allocations, deleting those in the PAP and enumerated in the NEP that do not conform with Constitutional provisions. Fiddlesticks is one strong word that Marcos Jr. could have used to veto all the criminal insertions in the budgetary process since July 2022 but the Englishman in him did not pout or express consternation when the same financial abuses were enacted since July 2022.
Bersamin should start thinking deeply as well inasmuch as congressmen and senators are being grilled for collecting between 20% and 30% of the price of FCPs implemented by their favorite 15 contractors. The Filipino people should also take a curious look into the firing of Gen. Nicolas Torre III, who was hailed as a hero foer nabbing the Duterte spiritual adviser Apollo Carreon Quiboloy and Duterte himself on March 11, 2025. From hero to heel, Torre apparently was kicked out when he did not affix his signature on a letter and resolution of the National Police Commission (Napolcom) asking for P8-billion to finance the purchase of 10,000 cal. 5.56 mm. assault rifles for the PNP. In just 85 days, the Sulu-born Torre was transformed from hero to heel. Bersamin figures prominently in this episode, along with his son, the son of another Napolcom bigwig, an unnamed weapons supplier, DILG Secretary Jonvic Remulla (who irrationally claimed Torre did nothing wrong, so why sack him?) The excuse could be easily be flushed down the toilet bowl. The DPWH plunder cases, the assault files purchase bid and scam deserve further discussion as they prove that graft is baked into the system’s DNA.