The President’s allies have described the 2026 General Appropriations Act as the “cleanest” budget in history, which implies that previous national budgets, including the ones passed during the leadership of the current Senate President, occupy a broad spectrum that ranges from the dirtiest to somewhat clean. Lawyers would call that an admission against interest, but no one is suing for past sanitary habits.

This year’s budget is patronage-proof, they said, with another senator calling it “pork-free.” This sweeping statement was answered with an equally sweeping statement from another senator,  the President’s sister and self-anointed defender of Vice President Sara Duterte. The budget is oozing with ground pork, she declared, tossed in to secure her impeachment. 

Several House leaders, however, are distancing themselves from any impeachment move this year even as the Palace has shifted its tone from outright rejection to vague consent, invoking accountability. Contrast this with last year, when the House, after systematically demolishing the Vice President with shocking revelations of corruption, impeached her in a fast-break move just days before the start of the midterm campaign. 

The mood and the disposition at the House has shifted from stoked to indifferent, from “palaban” in 2025 to “matamlay” in 2026. 

It’s not hard to see why the congressmen are quietly grumbling about their current predicament. The Palace continues to cast them as villainous characters in the President’s floundering anti-corruption campaign. In seeking to extol the virtues of the 2026 budget, the President’s men cited two examples: the removal of guarantee letters from legislators for those seeking medical assistance and the supposed ban on the presence of legislators during “ayuda” payouts. In short, no more “epal” or credit-grabbing.

But these policy declarations, oozing with assured virtue, didn’t come with instructions, as some legislators pointed out. How would they now answer such requests from their constituents, who look to their congressmen for succor, not as their last resort during emergencies but their first option? What do they tell the families when the hospital bill starts piling up? The health secretary’s assurance that ordinary folks need not worry about their hospital bills should be taken at face value considering the broken state of our health care system.

Dealing with political costs

I hope the President’s advisers have weighed the political costs of demonizing members of Congress at this stage. Perhaps they believe they have a higher calling, a purpose that entails breaking the ties that bind a sitting president and his congressional allies, even at the expense of priority bills and impeachment. 

They have deprived legislators of the tools to secure votes, and that includes tarpaulin streamers, not a sin or a crime, except in the eyes of pundits and the self-righteous middle class scandalized by the sight of politician’s streamers during “ayuda” payouts where the lowest amount doled out, equivalent to about four orders of venti-sized matcha latte, is a lifeline to the poor who don’t really bother with such things as credit-grabbing as long as the family has food for a day.   

Credit grabbing is not the problem. It’s not what ails the budget. And it’s the least of our legislators’ frailties. 

The national budget has always been a bottomless source of nourishment for the insatiable, from legislators, contractors and suppliers, and executive officials. Credit goes to the President for making corruption in the national budget a national concern, shocked as he was by the extent of corruption in the budget process, and probably more shocked to learn that his people had their big toes dipped in the milk of public funds all this time, shocked to the point of being immobilized, unable, some say unwilling, to hold his own people accountable.

Pork by any other name

In simpler times, let’s call it the 90s, “pork barrel” meant basketball courts, farm-to-market roads, health centers, and other infrastructure projects credited to legislators. It was defended as a tool to “balance” the national government’s focus on major infrastructure projects, neglecting in the process the needs of localities and local constituents. With pork, the felt needs of the people, yes, even a basketball court, are theoretically satisfied by their congressmen. 

Then pork was segregated into “soft” and “hard” projects, “soft” an all-encompassing term to include livelihood projects, products, and instructional materials, the stuff that made Janet Napoles rich and her network of legislators richer.  Under this category falls the different permutations of financial assistance doled out by government, known by the shorthand “ayuda.” Whether “soft” or “hard,” both are fat-rich, clogging arteries and fattening the pockets of those who indulge in luxuries purchased with ill-gotten wealth.

As the budget grew to trillions, the state of the nation went the opposite direction. Basic services, living conditions, and the overall quality of life has deteriorated faster than you can say nepo baby. The 2026 budget doesn’t address that. For some critics, it has only been packaged with an extra application of deodorant. – Rappler.com

Joey Salgado is a former journalist, and a government and political communications practitioner. He served as spokesperson for former vice president Jejomar Binay.