The year of suspended animation?

First out of the gate this year was news that President Marcos approved the budget except for his veto of unprogrammed funds. As our very own reporter Dexter Cabalza tweeted yesterday morning, “President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. says he vetoed P92.5 billion or 38 percent of the P243.4 billion in unprogrammed appropriations in the 2026 General Appropriations Act (GAA), noting that he reduced it to ‘absolute bare minimum.’”

This was factual, but right from the start, it represented a defeat for the Palace because it suggested the President trimmed some fat, but left enough for the budget to be juicy for the hardheaded legislators, who insisted on unprogrammed appropriations (helpfully defined by Raine Musñgi as the “type of funding that only has broad spending categories instead of specific breakdowns”) in the first place.

It took the rest of the day for the details to trickle out. A news website itemized what the President vetoed (the figures are my rough estimates): budgetary support to government-owned and -controlled corporations, P6.8 billion; prior years’ local government unit shares, P14 million; payment of personnel services requirements, P43 billion; CARS Program (Automotive Industry Support), P4.3 billion; RACE Program (Automotive Industry Competitiveness), P250 million; insurance of government assets and interests, P2 billion; government counterpart for certain foreign-assisted projects, P35 billion.

Even later than that came the added information that, “under the unprogrammed allocations in the 2026 GAA, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. retained only the following items: support to foreign-assisted projects (P97.30 billion), program on risk management (P3.6 billion), revised AFP Modernization Program (P50 billion),” according to another news website.

Considering that it was the congressional deletion of allocations for foreign-assisted projects that led (according to some) the President to criticize Congress’ appetite for creating and consuming unprogrammed funds, and that one fundamental lesson of last year’s flood-related horrors was the need to restore national government support for Project Noah, and that preserving funding for national defense is both necessary and wise, the President’s choices seem proper: but again, the only thing people will remember is that Congress is back to its old bad habits and that the best the President could do was reduce the number of dishes at the buffet.

There’s a reason Theodore Roosevelt famously said he preferred to speak softly and carry a big stick: the alternative, speaking loudly, only to feebly wave around a little twig, doesn’t make for much in the way of leadership. Heading into the new year, we heard the President, the secretary of the interior, and the Ombudsman all speaking loudly: first, there would be arrests before Christmas; then, there would, instead, be arrests by Dec. 27, with more arrests to come by Jan. 11. With only four days to go until that date (when at least 10 congressmen were said to be due to be arrested), neither the senators (current and former) nor the full roster of implicated contractors and ringleaders, have been picked up.

With every missed deadline, the only conclusion left for the public is that the government was either telegraphing its punches to give a chance for the guilty to get away or had lost its nerve because rounding up a few can only feed public expectations of rounding up many. Most of all, it makes it seem increasingly improbable, to those still keeping an open mind, that the President or his people can positively and pleasantly surprise the public by actually going after those caught red-handed turning public works into private fortunes.

When talk began, that the President, in private at least, was scandalized by the tapeworm-like appetites of representatives and senators, an accompanying joke went along the lines of “you know it’s really bad when a Marcos is shocked by the extent of graft and corruption.”

But seriously, folks, hell hath no fury like a President scorned; when the tapeworms didn’t deliver a slam dunk midterm victory, he was filled with the kind of righteous indignation one used to see in the old-time kingpins of politics in the American South. Nothing beats Huey Long’s immortal threat to voters: “Vote for me, or by God, you’ll get good government!”

So for half a year, the President has been threatening good government, but his threats keep getting postponed. Generally, as many Filipinos in the surveys remain undecided on whether he means it as they continue to believe in him, which means, politically, he may be in former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo territory as far as unpopularity, but far from where she was in terms of how that opinion solidified against her, while it remains tentative enough for him to realistically plot a comeback.

He only has between now and July to swing it. His next agenda-setting move is to further revamp the Cabinet. But it’s merely musical chairs until–and unless—Camp Crame receives a new batch of VIP detainees.

—————-

Email: mlquezon3@gmail.com; Twitter: @mlq3