When the president’s alter ego flares up over “political theatrics” by some members of the House of Representatives and chides the legislative chamber to “clean [its] house first,” is it a sign that the chief executive is discomfited by his cousin’s leadership, particularly over his role in the scandalous insertions into the national government budget?
“The Cabinet strongly objects to the recent spins coming from certain members of the House of Representatives who are thereby attempting to shift the blame for their own corruption and failures onto the executive branch,” Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin said in a three-paragraph statement on Saturday.
“The members of the Cabinet will not tolerate any attack on the integrity and reputation of the executive branch, and any effort to hold the budget process hostage by political theatrics,” Bersamin went on.
“All our investigations into the anomalies will be futile if the sources of corruption remain unchecked. Hence, we urge the House of Representatives to heed the demand of the people for full accountability: Clean your house first.”
The strongly worded statement from the “Little President” was supposed to be in response to a suggestion from the House to return the proposed P6.79 trillion national budget program for 2026, known as the National Expenditure Program, submitted by Malacañang last Aug. 13.
In a press conference last Wednesday, Deputy Speaker Ronaldo Puno said the NEP has erroneous entries. “There have been many concerns raised by our party leaders, so we have decided as a group to recommend the return of the 2026 national budget to the DBM because we do not know how to deal with it,” said Puno, chairman of the National Unity Party, who was joined by other political party leaders from the Lakas-CMD, Nacionalista Party and Nationalist People’s Coalition.
“We have to practically redo the entire [2026 budget] submission to us. We do not want to be suspected of any untoward action. We don’t want it to appear that we are not accepting the rightful recommendations of the DBM,” Puno added.
On the same day, Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman and Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon sat down and agreed to do a “sweeping review” of the P881 billion proposed budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways in line with the president’s order for a budget cleanup. They agreed to complete the review of the agency’s 700-page spending plan within two weeks.
Last Thursday, the House dropped its plan to return the proposed budget to Malacañang. “The speaker said instead of returning everything, we just [point out errors] per district allocations, even if it takes us two days complaining [during committee deliberations]. But you point out every single problem that every single district has,” said Puno after meeting the previous night with Speaker Martin Romualdez.
During the initial public hearings on the 2026 proposed budget, some lawmakers pinpointed duplicate entries and projects already completed but still getting funding. Pangandaman said these will be checked and corrected.
In his fourth State of the Nation Address on July 22, the president warned Congress that he would “return any proposed General Appropriations Bill that is not fully aligned with the National Expenditure Program.”
“And further, I am willing to do this even if we end up with a reenacted budget. Hindi ko aaprubahan ang kahit anong budget na hindi alinsunod sa plano ng gobyerno para sa sambayanang Pilipino,” he said.
But when the House threatened to return Malacañang’s budget proposal that supposedly had erroneous entries, Pangandaman warned that a reenacted budget would leave many projects unfunded and weigh heavily on economic growth.
With Pangandaman and Dizon already promising to make the necessary corrections in the spending program and the House withdrawing its plan to return the NEP to Malacañang on Thursday, Bersamin’s statement rebuking the House over a plan that had been shelved appears to be unnecessary, unless the Palace wants to send a message to Romualdez to “moderate [their] greed.”
Or was it part of the “political theatrics” to show that the president empathizes with the sufferings of people due to long-delayed, malfunctioning or inexistent flood control projects by private contractors in cahoots with corrupt lawmakers, all in view of the 2028 elections?
And then there are teasers on the latest BBM podcast episode showing the president on the verge of tears, saying he was “very upset” over the hardships Filipinos are going through because of the effects of corruption in government projects.
The views in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of VERA Files.
This column also appeared in The Manila Times.
