Bicameral black box

Every year, we watch the same exhausting pantomime. The executive proposes a budget, the House and Senate debate it under the glare of the cameras, and then the whole thing disappears into the Bicameral Conference Committee. It is a legislative black box. What comes out is often bloated, heavily massaged, and magically enriched by billions of pesos.

But the music just stopped. In a landmark decision penned by Senior Associate Justice Marvic Leonen, the Supreme Court struck down hundreds of billions in congressional budget insertions across the 2024, 2025, and 2026 national budgets. The ruling outlawed opaque, lump-sum unprogrammed appropriations — like the notorious SAGIP program — and reminded lawmakers of a simple constitutional fact: you cannot exceed the President’s spending ceiling.

Let’s look into that black box. The High Court explicitly called out the bicameral committee for failing to keep records or explain how, exactly, they conjured a staggering PHP 449.5 billion increase in 2024 unprogrammed appropriations. Who is accountable for these backroom dealings? The SC applied the “doctrine of operative fact” to protect innocent people who already received aid, but they dropped a heavy warning — the officials who authored and implemented these unconstitutional insertions are not automatically shielded from criminal or administrative liability. We have the ruling. Now we need the receipts. It is time to name the lawmakers who pushed these specific lump sums.

The tragedy here is the collateral damage. Congress did not just invent numbers out of thin air; they bloated unprogrammed funds to funnel money into highly visible, politically profitable initiatives. They severely distorted the budget to move money into DPWH flood control projects like SIPAG, DSWD cash transfers like the Ayuda sa Kapos ang Kita, and DOLE programs like the Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged or Displaced Workers Program (TUPAD). What happens to the Filipinos relying on these specific socio-economic programs now that their funding source has been voided? They are left holding the bag. It is a cynical maneuver — using critical social safety nets and infrastructure as political leverage, leaving ordinary citizens caught in a constitutional crossfire.

We are witnessing the death of the modern pork barrel. Unprogrammed appropriations and programs like SAGIP had simply become the new repository for legislative pork. It allowed branches of government to bypass the spending cap and inflate the budget to fund localized pet projects.

The Court didn’t just tear the budget down; it provided a blueprint for the future. They laid out four strict conditions for the constitutional use of unprogrammed funds — essentially demanding an end to lump sums and requiring sufficient spending priorities. The House and Senate must adopt these guidelines into their internal rules immediately, starting with a mandate for public record-keeping during bicameral meetings.

We should not need the Supreme Court to force lawmakers to tell us how they spend our money. The gavel has fallen on the shadow budget — now we see who actually wants to govern in the light.