Leaders of both houses of Congress were too quick to assure speedy deliberations on the P5.268-trillion proposed national budget for 2023. But wait, a deputy speaker is questioning the lack of transparency in the first full-year spending program of the Marcos presidency.
By DARLENE CAY THE Liga ng mga Barangay sa Pilipinas on Wednesday filed a motion for reconsideration after a local court denied its petition to declare as illegal the Commission on Elections’ directive requiring barangays to help fund the October 28 polls. The group, in its petition before the Manila Regional Trial Court, says the
By DARLENE CAY THE Commission on Elections has so far pooled a mere P102 million from barangays to augment funds for the October 28 elections, or only about a quarter of the amount the body poll would have collected if all the 42,028 barangays nationwide remitted their share. Only 17 percent or 6,981 villages turned
By CHERRY JOY VENILES IN Florencio “Butch” Abad’s book, the national budget is a game—a game, he says, in which “political actors with conflicting demands and competing to get a larger pie of the nation’s scarce resources.” But years of experience as politician, lawmaker, academic and Cabinet secretary in three government administrations have also shown
