Reclaiming Public Trust and Accountability

According to Peso Weekly, “Lacson disclosed that almost all 19th Congress senators allegedly made individual insertions totaling at least ₱100,000,000,000 in the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA). This colossal sum was initially hidden under the status: 'For Later Release' (FLR).”

The pork barrels or DAP, during Aquino’s time and described by the Supreme Court as “unconstitutional,” are now being revived silently by our senators and congressmen as “amendments” or “special programs.”

This is unconscionable and deplorable. We have, I believed, elected the most corrupt set of elected people in government. The plunder is no longer at hundreds of millions—they have already whisked off hundreds of billions from our budget. Who is to blame? We are.

Everyone is complicit, and everybody involved should face the wrath of the people—not just the trillion-march in EDSA and Luneta, disguised as a pink party, but a natural galvanization of people disgusted with the political system.

What we can do

We have to be determined and adamant:

1. The budget for 2026 is a public contract—no vague line items or opaque amendments should be disbursed. The people should NOT be kept in the dark about who benefits and why.

2. Accountability is not optional. Institutions tasked with oversight—the Commission on Audit, the Ombudsman, the Sandiganbayan, and the Office of the Special Prosecutor—should be given more powers and teeth to prosecute public officials by appointing accountable and transparent people, loyal to the people and not to money or wealth. We must give them independence and fund these institutions adequately so they can investigate, prosecute, and publicize findings without fear or retribution.

3. We have our Constitution and the by-laws that came with it to guide us and to avoid “bending” these laws to the whims and caprices of certain individuals. Any attempts or mechanisms to subvert due process or constitutional safeguards to shortcut expenditures for the sake of a few must be challenged in proper legal venues and opposed by all who value the rule of law—without fear, favor, or retribution.

4. WE ARE CITIZENS—not mere spectators of our country’s success and loss. We should develop a robust culture of oversight—inclusive of civil society without division colors, journalists, scholars, technocrats, Gen Z, and ordinary citizens like me—without fear of retribution or favor.