Unsustainable greed

It is time members of Congress and other top officials realize that their continued plunder of the National Treasury through all varieties of pork barrel funds is definitely unsustainable. The government can only raise so much in taxes and must borrow for a huge part of the P6.352-trillion National Budget they passed last week.

And because the country’s economic development has to catch up with regional peers, every centavo of available public money must be spent to improve our ability to make the economy more productive. That means investing in infrastructure, both physical and human.

The insatiable greed of senators, congressmen and other officials must be tamed for the common good. Otherwise, our grandchildren will have nothing to look forward to except paying the debts this generation of public officials have made to enrich themselves at the expense of every Filipino. The consequences of continued greed would be grim.

Finance Secretary Ralph Recto said that this year, we had to borrow P2.57 trillion or P4 billion “every 24 hours.” Because we have increased pork funds and reduced business and other taxes under CREATE MORE, we have to borrow a lot more for 2025.

This year, our annual debt obligation is P878 billion; higher than the budgets for health, social welfare, agriculture and tourism combined. Is it worth it?

Simply put, it is alright to borrow if the money is used to increase our economy’s ability to grow. But unfortunately, the Treasury is borrowing money to enrich congressmen or senators and fund VP Sara’s unexplainable confidential funds.

Back in 2019, Deputy Ombudsman Cyril Ramos said corruption eats up 20 percent of the national budget each year. Put another way, leakages--money lost to corruption and incompetence--are estimated at P1 trillion a year out of our P6 trillion budget.

Imagine losing a trillion pesos for nothing good.

A good part of our losses is, ironically enough, legal because the people we elected to represent us in Congress voted to approve allocations that in all honesty were designed to line their pockets. They have voted for budget provisions to perpetuate the political patronage system that makes our downtrodden citizens dependent on them for basic necessities that the state should provide.

Aside from the almost P20 billion appropriation to run Congress, members of the House will get P26 billion and the Senate P5 billion for the super pork barrel program known as AKAP.

BBM proposed P825-billion for DPWH but Congress added P289 billion for a total of P1.114 trillion, a record amount. Most of that will go to flood control projects. As usual, members of Congress will pocket billions of pesos from fake river dredging in addition to kickbacks of as high as 70-percent from other DPWH projects like highway rock nettings and cat’s eyes.

The 2025 budget is heavily pork laden, which in a better world, should cause our politicians to have heart attacks from all the cholesterol. AKAP or Ayuda Para sa Kapos ang Kita Program was devised by our legislators so they can supposedly provide financial assistance to low-income minimum wage earners.

Congress gets P26 billion. If all 316 members get equally, they would get P83 million each. If sectoral representatives aren’t included, representatives from congressional districts would get almost P103 million each.

The Senate gets P5 billion. If all 24 senators get AKAP funds equally, they get P208 million each. Parang nanalo sila sa lotto.

How is AKAP distributed? How can we make sure ALL is handed out and not pocketed?

Well, there are no guarantees at all. We have to trust our congressmen and senators that the money is used to help those who need assistance for medical or other essential expenses and not to buy Hermes bags or a Ferrari.

If AKAP is truly what it should be, the DSWD should be handling it. Poor patients will now go to the congressmen for a guarantee letter to avail themselves of medical services from specialty hospitals. That’s dehumanizing. No one should have to line up in a legislator’s office to ask for the required assistance. The Sin Tax Law and PhilHealth Law were intended to institutionalize this assistance through PhilHealth.

And because 2025 is an election year, we can be sure AKAP will be used to buy votes at our expense.

How did the members of Congress mangle the original budget proposal to get themselves that much funding for AKAP?

DepEd lost P12 billion. CHED lost P30 billion. Free college support lost P3 billion. DSWD loses P96 billion. DOTr lost P16.7 billion. PhilHealth gets zero budget or lost P74.4 billion that is usually provided so indigents can avail themselves of its assistance. Now PhilHealth must

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cover the needs of the indigents from the premiums of paying members. There goes all the good intentions or press releases about having universal health care in this country.

The legislators also reduced the budget for the Department of Science and Technology, which will affect critical agencies like PAGASA and Phivolcs, hampering disaster preparedness efforts amid increasing typhoons and volcanic activity.

The already overmanned bureaucracy will grow as personnel expenses are set to increase while capital outlays, including spending on infrastructure will shrink. There will be a growing dependence on getting the private sector to invest on expressways and even the modernization of airports. Taxpayers end up paying a toll to use vital infrastructure which a better government should have built and provided for their public use for free.

Our Treasury’s continued ability to borrow to finance corruption and inefficiency in government is not unlimited. As our economy’s ability to grow continually declines, creditors will start reducing its enthusiasm to buy the Treasury Bills and other debt papers of our government. This is why we need a moratorium on greed.

Every Filipino must use the power of social media to shame our officials to moderate their greed. This is our last hope before we become an economic basket case again.

Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected]. Follow him on X @boochanco