Not on the same page

Over the weekend, former president Rodrigo Duterte came out anew from his retirement in Davao City. He denounced what he believed were illegal acts that went into the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA). In particular, ex-president Duterte showed purported pages where certain budget items in the 2025 GAA were blank or unfilled with specific amounts of allocation. Himself a former Davao City congressman, Mr. Duterte called out the bicameral conference committee (bicam) as being behind the alleged blank budget items in the 2025 GAA.

Worse, Mr. Duterte bewailed, the 2025 GAA was signed into law by President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM). Citing “it’s the people’s money,” Mr. Duterte fumed against those who tinkered with the 2025 GAA.

Mr. Duterte decried these blanks when they were not supposed “to leave any item vacant to be filled later.” Samples of alleged pages of the bicam report bore unknown initials of signatories. The erstwhile chief executive underscored the need that intended appropriations must be explained in “clear, patent, without doubt” provisions in the annual budget law.

It was Davao City 3rd District Rep. Isidro Ungab, an ally of the Dutertes, who initially questioned what he called the “discrepancies” in the bicam report of this year’s budget. Formerly the House appropriations committee chairman during the Duterte presidency, Ungab exposed the blank amounts for items under the Agriculture Department and unprogrammed appropriations.

“You cannot pass a law with blank, that is not allowed by law. You cannot pass an incomplete appropriation, or a bill for that matter, or whatever,” ex-president Duterte pointed out. “It’s not only inaccurate but I think the budget in totality is invalid… I would like to remind Congress, mali po yan. It’s invalid. Please correct it,” Mr. Duterte urged.

Legally speaking, Mr. Duterte warned tampering with a public document like the bicam report is a violation of existing laws. “If it is not a true and accurate (bicam) copy, as passed by Congress, that is falsified or forgery. Pili ka lang: forgery, falsification or jail,” Mr. Duterte pointed out.

That is, if he, or she, or they, are caught, if I may add.

Signed into law on Dec. 30 last year, PBBM sent the GAA back to the respective leaderships of the 19th Congress with attached message on the line-item vetoes. It specified budget provisions in the 2025 GAA which were identified as “insertions” and re-alignments traced mostly to the bicam report. Dubbed as the “third” Congress, the bicam consolidated the differing provisions of the versions of the 2025 budget bill separately approved by the Senate and the House of Representatives. So the bicam report is the final version of the 2025 GAA.

The bicam for the 2025 GAA was jointly headed by Sen. Grace Poe as the chairperson of the Senate finance committee and Ako Bicol Party List Rep. Zaldy Co, as then chairman of the House appropriations committee. Mr. Duterte’s accusations came a few days after Co’s ouster.

When sessions resumed last Jan. 13, presidential son, deputy House majority leader Ilocos Norte Rep. Sandro Marcos, presented a motion “declaring vacant” the chairmanship of the powerful House appropriations committee. Hearing no objection from the floor, Speaker Martin Romualdez banged the gavel to signal the entire House in session approved the motion declaring “vacant” Co’s post. Insisting he was not removed from the most coveted House committee chairmanship, Co claimed he left his post on his own volition because of “pressing health concerns.”

But not after PBBM vetoed a whopping P194 billion from the Congress-approved 2025 GAA. From the original submission of P6.352 trillion, the 2025 budget law amounted to just P6.326 trillion. The vetoed provisions consisted mainly of new items of projects that were not in the 2025 National Expenditure Program of the President’s budget as submitted to Congress.

Facing directly the latest public rants of his immediate predecessor, PBBM did not mince words in his riposte: “He’s (Mr. Duterte) lying.” In his talk back to Mr. Duterte, PBBM argued that, like other past presidents, he went through each and every line item of the annual budget as due diligence before he signed the 2025 GAA.

In fact, PBBM had been reviewing and vetting the 2025 GAA along with Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin and his Cabinet economic team led by DBM Secretary Amenah Pangandaman before and after it was signed. A budget item that does not specify the projects to be funded and its allocation was never allowed in the entire history of the Philippines, PBBM asserted.

The Chief Executive encouraged the public to examine the soft copy of the 2025 GAA uploaded to the website of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM). He cited this would prove that the claims about the “missing amounts is a lie.”

“You do not need to inspect it one by one. Look for the blank checks they were referring to. Look for them and see if you can spot even a single one. That will  prove that I am correct in saying that it was just a lie,” PBBM declared.

The DBM confirmed this in an official statement issued last Monday. “What has been presented by certain misinformed individuals are pages from the Bicam Report and NOT the General Appropriations Bill (GAB) nor the GAA,” the DBM noted.

In a separate statement, the Executive Secretary cited all 4,057 pages of the GAA, across two volumes, were meticulously reviewed by professional staff from Congress and the DBM. “No page of the 2025 national budget was left unturned,” Bersamin swore. The former Chief Justice likewise issued his own warning to those deliberately spreading false information. “The peddling of such fake news is outrightly malicious and should be condemned as criminal,” Bersamin warned.

The former president is the father of PBBM’s estranged Vice President Sara Duterte.

PBBM’s arguments referred though to the 2025 GAA. On the other hand, Mr. Duterte adverted to the bicam report as evidence. Obviously, the two of them were literally not on the same page. Indeed, there was a lot of hanky-panky that went into the 2025 GAA. But what are they not telling us?