‘Insertions’: Marcos-Romualdez’s innovation as their machinery for corruption
WHAT the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) was to the Aquino III-Abad administration, the “insertions” in the General Appropriations Bill for 2025 is to the Marcos-Romualdez regime, but perhaps a hundred times worse: A mechanism to hijack the budget, and as alleged by a participant in the crime, in order to deliver P56 billion in kickbacks to the two top officials of the land.
It would have continued every year under Marcos if Nature itself had not exposed the flood control projects authorized through these insertions to be nonexistent.
The “insertions” scheme was so clever that even the otherwise clever academics-commentators — who presumably should have the intellectual capacity to see through the scheme — were either genuinely puzzled by it or were deliberately confounding it to hide the Marcos regime’s gargantuan graft.
Cielo Magno, even with a Ph.D. from a US university and a three-year stint as undersecretary at the finance department, expressed doubt in her Facebook page on the whistleblower Zaldy Co’s explosive revelation: “Ang tanong ko lang kay Zaldy Co, parang sobrang tanga naman ni BBM na hinintay pa ang bicam para mag insert ng 100B na pwede na nya isaksak yun sa NEP pa lang? (Is BBM so stupid that he had to wait for the bicam to make the insertions when he could have easiliy inserted it into the National Expenditures Program).”
A columnist in this paper, who has a has a Ph.D. (on upland farming) who gets P40,000 monthly from a government propaganda outfit elaborated Magno’s ignorance of the budget process: “The president has full control over the NEP which is crafted by the Department of Budget and Management under his direct policy direction. If he wished for P100 billion to be added, he would not need to rely on a legislator at the bicameral conference committee. He could simply instruct his budget secretary to include it in the NEP before submission to Congress.” He even arrogantly emphasizes, “This is a procedural fact, not an opinion.”
But that is blatantly wrong, the result of the columnist’s laziness in researching what the budget process is about, perhaps even motivated by his thinking that he has to earn his keep defending Marcos, or lose it.
Yes, the NEP is what the executive branch submits to Congress, which has the authority to amend it, according to the constitutional provision that all government expenses must be authorized by the legislature, in the case of the national budget, through the General Appropriations Act (GAA) it passes and which is then enacted into law by the president’s signing it.
That the NEP is drawn up by the president is only half-true. He approves it for transmittal to Congress, but its provisions consist of the budgets that each government department and agency submits to the Department of Budget and Management, which then puts them unchanged in the NEP, or amends or totally discards them. Often, unless the president drastically changes these according to his priority programs, the agencies’ budgets are proposed increases on their past budgets.
GAA
The GAA is the “president’s budget” only because of the major increases in expenditures based on his priorities. For instance, Aquino III increased the dole-outs to the poor from P111 million to P63 billion, Duterte his “Build, Build, Build” infrastructure program, and Marcos to his “8-Point Socio Economic Agenda,” especially for food security and health.
After such priorities though, it is the agencies that mostly formulate and obtain approval for their budgets. Corruption is undertaken by contractors and suppliers winning the contract for a GAA-approved project by offering kickbacks to the agency officials responsible for getting it approved, or to legislators and local government officials.
For instance, a close friend asked my help to convince a Laguna legislator to reduce the P2 million he demanded for a P10-million all-purpose municipality building. Another asked for advice on how he could recover the P25 million he advanced to a Cabinet-level official to get an infrastructure project as the official had resigned (or been kicked out) before he could sign the contract.
This system has been going on probably since the birth of the Republic, with the percentage kickback of 20 percent maintained all these decades, euphemistically called “SOP” and ‘for the guys.” Almost all departments have such a system of graft.
In the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), it is nearly a perfect crime since the official getting the kickbacks won’t ever squeal on the contractor or supplier, as both would be liable to severe penalties under our anti-graft laws. One contractor can’t squeal on another as they have a system of rigged bidding for contracts, by which they take turns “winning” a contract. A squealer will never win a contract again.
Flood
Flood control scams are said to be the easiest to undertake as these are located in distant places, far from inspection by the public that wouldn’t even know what a functioning flood control project is.
By the time a NEP is submitted to the president, much of the government projects have already been earmarked for certain contractors in collusion with agency or local government heads. It would be risky for officials on the national level — like Marcos, the House speaker, or the senators — to elbow their way into already graft-loaded projects, as former Senate president Chiz Escudero, Senators Jinggoy Estrada, Nancy Binay and Joel Villanueva are alleged to have done.
In his July 2024 State of the Nation Address (SONA), Marcos boasted: “More than 5,500 hundred flood control projects have already been completed, and many more are currently being built across the entire country.” Three months later, an unprecedented cluster of six tropical typhoons hit the country, creating floods all over the nation. “Where are your 5,500 flood control projects, Mr. President?” an angry nation shouted.
Marcos, I suspect, reacted with the following moves:
He asked his DPWH head Manuel Bonoan, Romualdez and House appropriations committee chairman Zaldy Co, who had long been in the construction industry, what happened to the flood control projects. To downplay the fact that all of these had kickbacks built into their costing, which resulted in defective projects, they pinned the blame on “ghost projects,” that is, those weren’t even constructed.
Impossible
In November 2024, Marcos asked Co, who was practically the sole official formulating the final appropriations bill for 2025 to include in the DPWH budget only those contractors they could rely on to build quality flood control projects. Co probably told the president that these would be impossible as the DPWH budget was nearly completed, and it would create so much outrage to remove the budgets for projects already earmarked for the unscrupulous contractors.
Co, one of the three top contractors with the largest government projects who knows the ins and outs of the DPWH construction industry, told Marcos it would be easier if they — Marcos, Romualdez, Co, and according to the latter’s recent revelation, Marcos’ son Sandro — to come up with a list of projects to be undertaken by their favored contractors, and “insert” it in the final appropriations bill to be submitted to the president for his signature.
After he turned into a whistleblower, Co released the list of 800 projects worth P100 billion in his Facebook post that was “inserted” in the appropriations bill. Yesterday, Co released presidential son Sandro’s own list worth P50 billion. Of course, the prince would have to be accommodated.
In a slip of the tongue, Marcos himself, in reply to claims that there were blank items in the appropriations bill, said: “I had to read 4,057 pages of the General Appropriations Act for 2025. Because I reviewed it, analyzed it, and yes, in parts, vetoed it.” It was Marcos who likely filled up the blank items. With his careless response to a reporter’s query, he cannot claim he knew nothing about the Co list of 800 projects.
However, there’s a constitutional provision (Section 25 (1) making this not as easy to undertake: “Congress may not increase the appropriations recommended by the President for the operation of the Government as specified in the budget.”
P6.45 trillion
That is, while Romualdez and Co could insert the projects they wanted in the proposed budget, they could not increase the NEP’s total P6.45 trillion budget. Marcos had to gut his own NEP, vetoing a total of P168 billion that his Cabinet had proposed. He even vetoed DPWH projects worth P17 billion to leave room for the 800 projects worth P100 billion that he, Romualdez and Co preferred.
Other major projects in other departments which Marcos vetoed include the following: programs for health, social welfare, development, higher and technical education, and other social programs — P77 billion; Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program — P50 billion; Rice Competitiveness Enhancement Fund — P5 billion; Department of Education Computerization Program — P5 billion; public health emergency benefits and allowances for healthcare and non-health care workers — P2 billion; Asset Preservation Program (right-of-way payments) — P7.5 billion; social pension for indigent senior citizens — P1 billion; and Pambansang Pabahay Para sa Pilipino program — P1 billion.
One of the terrible trio likely proposed: “Since we’re serving the country by funding only responsible contractors, and giving these a lot of business, why don’t we ask them to give a part of their profits to us?” Obviously, Marcos agreed, and ordered Co to undertake the collections.
Co would later claim that the inserted items generated P56 billion in kickbacks for the president and his cousin Martin, and still an undisclosed amount for the alleged P51 billion insertions asked by the president’s son and House majority leader, Sandro.
When the public outrage broke out after the exposés that flood control projects funded by government had not actually been built, with contractors pocketing billions of pesos. Marcos used that old PR strategy of claiming to have exposed the huge scam himself.
It has gone out of control, however, and threatens to bring down his rule.
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The post ‘Insertions’: Marcos-Romualdez’s innovation as their machinery for corruption first appeared on Rigoberto Tiglao.
‘Insertions’: Marcos-Romualdez’s innovation as their machinery for corruption
Source: Breaking News PH
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