BAYAN: BBM as bad as Sara in confidential funds misuse
The ongoing budget hearings may be focusing on Sara Duterte’s misuse of funds, but the country’s biggest alliance of activists are reminding the country it is actually the Office of the President (OP) that is the biggest spender of the pork barrel.
As the House of Representatives resumes its deliberations of the 2025 national budget, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) led a protest in front of the House of Representatives Tuesday to condemn the massive pork barrel allocation for President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
The alliance pointed out that in the past two years, lump sum discretionary funds under the OP ballooned which include the special purpose funds and un-programmed allocations.
“Marcos Jr. also spent 4.56 billion pesos using confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) during the same period (2023 and 2024),” BAYAN said.
The group added that while Duterte is in the hot seat for her unexplained use of P125 million in CIF in just 11 days in December 2023 as well as controversial projects while she was education secretary from 2022 to 2024, Marcos Jr. is also guilty of recklessly using people’s money on dubious expenses.
The OP is seeking a P10.506 billion for next year, on top of another P4.56 billion CIF budget.
“Congress should seek an independent audit of these funds,” BAYAN said.
“Marcos allies and supporters have decried the CIF spending of Duterte but they ignore the bigger and more questionable CIF allocation of the Office of the President,” it added.
Supposedly already prohibited by a 2013 Supreme Court Pork ruling against the so-called Priority Development Assistance Fund, legislators and Malacañang continue to invent ways to insert fund allocations to various agencies to allow for patronage and corruption.
BAYAN said it calls for the complete abolition of the pork barrel system and the realignment of these funds to food subsidies and social services.
“We should start with the CIF and special purpose funds of Marcos Jr. which represent the biggest pork barrel items in the proposed 2025 budget, the group said.
BAYAN added it joins the people in expressing outrage over the arbitrary use of taxpayers’ money by greedy politicians led by Marcos Jr. who seeks to consolidate power ahead of the 2025 election.
“It is infuriating that politicians continue to plunder the nation’s wealth at a time when there is rising hunger and poverty in the country,” BAYAN said.
“We call for more protests to end the pork barrel system and the dismantling of bureaucrat capitalism which has allowed notorious dynasties to dominate the country’s politics,” it added. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)
