Last two minutes

On the last day of 2025, the Roundtable for Inclusive Development (RFID) confirmed delivery of its letter to President Marcos before his expected approval of the 2026 budget bill after the New Year break. Despite assurances of a pork-free diet, the budget watch analysis noted in the letter some P633 billion in pork-smelling projects. These included “shadow pork,” items funded through unconstitutional, unprogrammed appropriations (UA) that RFID urged the President to veto.

RFID’s last-minute appeal, adding to the public protest mobilized by other civil society groups against pork, was not unproductive. Declaring that he would disallow the use of UA “as a backdoor for discretionary spending,” the President deleted P92.5 billion of the suspected P243 billion shadow pork in the budget approved by the bicameral conference committee. According to a television news report, he also promised transparency in “releases charged from the UA.”

The letter achieved two objectives. First, the details are now in the public domain. Second, the letter reached the President before its content leaked to the public. The signatories believed this sequence of information-sharing was important, not just as a matter of respect, but as a sign of good faith. The letter was not meant to provoke more anger against the President, among voters still enraged at the budget scams that had victimized them, before he had a chance to consider the issues it had raised.

It was the same good faith shown by critics in accepting the President’s “mahiya naman kayo” State of the Nation Address on July 28, in which he scolded officials for graft-ridden flood control projects. Presidential anger, reportedly aroused by his personal visit to badly done and “ghost” flood control projects, was, in truth, somewhat late. Academic seminars by late 2024 were discussing unprecedented budget irregularities dating back to the start of the Marcos administration in 2022. Whatever the President eventually decided on the 2026 budget could not later be attributed to ignorance of the facts.

RFID coconvenors Cardinal Pablo Virgilio David and Ramon R. del Rosario, senior leaders of the Church and the business community, respectively, have signed the RFID letter. Also signing were Kenneth Abante and Reycel Bendaña, a pair of 30-something coconvenors of budget watch, which was beginning to assume, along with other groups, the institutional role of the Roman tribune. The tribune directed the concerns and the anger of the plebeians, the ordinary citizens, at the dynastic, patrician class of senators ruling the Republic. But he could only veto senatorial measures. The office lacked the authority and often the capacity to craft alternative plans.

Budget watch had no official standing. But their leaders, self-described as “angry nerds,” had youth, energy, and the professional expertise to retrieve and reconstruct data, apply numbers-crunching skills, and produce evidence-based analysis. Combined with RFID’s connections and experience with legal/bureaucratic processes, the partnership could go beyond presenting problems to offering solutions. Its collaborative approach gained the support of senior government officials who could open access to additional data and to official deliberations on the budget process.

At this point, we do not know how the President will finally handle other questionable budget items flagged by RFID. “Soft pork,” raised by the bicam to P210 billion, nearly tripled the amount requested by the President. It included increases in the Senate and House budgets, as well as confidential funds for agencies without security and intelligence operations—both items likely to stoke more public anger.

The bulk of soft pork consisted of “ayuda” emergency assistance programs driven by political patrons. This required careful handling; the poor did need help with life crises, and politicians’ credit for supporting them. RFID proposed an executive order to move ayuda funds to existing rights-and-rules-based social protection programs, like the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, that politicians can champion.

RFID suggested holding over P400 billion for conditional release until it was protected by proper implementing rules. It recommended other items, perhaps too late to stop, for strict civil society monitoring. These covered P180 billion in projects suspected of being overpriced or duplicated.

RFID had addressed its appeal and challenge to the President: “As citizens, we remain committed to working with you to monitor the budget process so that every taxpayer peso benefits our nation.” His response will signal how he intends to deal with political rivals exploiting deep, public discontent as presidential powers erode in virtually the final two minutes of his administration. What legacy can he still hope to leave?

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Concerned citizens must, in turn, anticipate as best they can what the shape of the 2026 budget portends for the 2027 election budget and the options for a political reset in 2028, and what responses these may require from them.