SC decision shows: Marcos Jr. regime the most corrupt since 1986
THE Supreme Court’s declaration that the 2024 and 2025 national budgets, and even a part of the 2026 General Appropriations Act, were unconstitutional, and its detailed analysis to support this finding, point to an incontrovertible conclusion: President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and the 19th Congress that he and his cousin, former House Speaker Martin Romualdez, controlled was the most corrupt regime in our post-EDSA history.
In our history since we became an independent nation, never has the highest court of the land declared a budget made by the president and the Congress as violating the Constitution. The accompanying chart here vividly shows a sordid picture of the second Marcos regime, incomparable to past administrations.
The extraordinary amounts in “unprogrammed” funds released, the manipulation of appropriations by Congress, and Marcos’ approval and implementation of the 2024 and 2025 budgets present a picture of corruption at an unprecedented scale, extending from Congress to Malacañang. No wonder the House of Representatives has undertaken with so much enthusiasm Marcos’ plot to impeach Vice President Sara Duterte, to ban her from running for the presidency in 2028.
Unprogrammed funds are standby appropriations in the national budget that the government may spend only when funding is available, generally when state revenues are enough to finance them. Unlike regular, or programmed, appropriations, they are not supposed to be immediately available for expenditure simply because Congress has approved them.
Marcos signed into law the budgets that Congress approved, according to the Supreme Court decision, with an unprecedented P1.2 trillion in unprogrammed funds, much of which were funds the president had the discretion to release for whatever projects. According to Senate investigations on this scandal, P240 billion were released for flood control projects in 2024 and 2025, or 22 percent of the total P1 trillion unprogrammed appropriations in 2024 and 2025. Fourteen of the high court’s 15 justices agreed with the decision penned by Justice Marvic M.V.F. Leonen, with only Justice Antonio Kho, Jr. dissenting.
A substantial chunk of these unprogrammed funds was released for what turned out to be “ghost” or never-implemented but funded flood-control projects or those that were extremely defective. Sen. Panfilo Lacson estimated that P79 billion, or a third of the P240 billion allocated for flood control, were pocketed by legislators, local government officials and DPWH personnel, as the projects were not really implemented or were defective.
Accountable
Marcos himself therefore is accountable for this massive and unprecedented flood-control scam, as he approved the budget and through his budget secretary, released its huge funds for it.
Of course, the Supreme Court did not declare the Marcos administration corrupt, as it is not a criminal court but only a decider of constitutional issues, and after all, it was not the plea of the petitioners. But it established something legally distinct but politically devastating: Two successive national budgets enacted during his presidency patently violated the Constitution, allocating a trillion pesos of taxpayers’ money illegally.
The court also invalidated provisions governing unprogrammed appropriations in the 2026 budget, the third national budget affected by its ruling. Thus, constitutional defects appeared in three consecutive budgets under Marcos, although the 2026 violations were of a different character and involved the succeeding 20th Congress. However, it points to the fact that violating the constitutional provisions on the budget was a Marcos modus operandi in hijacking the budget.
The 2024 budget contained an unconstitutional increase of P450 billion in unprogrammed appropriations, while the 2025 budget exceeded the president’s proposed appropriations by another P18 billion through the Department of Public Works and Highways’ “Special Road Fund,” allegedly another mechanism for corruption. The court even noted that the unprogrammed funds were drastically reduced in 2026 only because of the widely publicized hearings on the flood-control scams.
The 2024 and 2025 budgets were enacted by the 19th Congress, with Romualdez, Marcos’ cousin and principal political ally, serving as House speaker throughout. Juan Miguel Zubiri was Senate president when the 2024 budget was approved; Francis Escudero headed the Senate when the 2025 budget was enacted. Sonny Angara headed the Senate panel for the 2024 budget, while Grace Poe headed it for 2025. Former congressman Zaldy Co, Romualdez’s right-hand man who is now a fugitive from the plunder charges involving the flood-control projects filed by the Ombudsman, headed the House panel.
Marcos
It was Marcos who signed these budgets into law; he could have vetoed the huge unprogrammed budgets, but he didn’t. Marcos, it seems, allowed the House members under the control of his cousin Romualdez to put into the budget the kind of funds they wanted for themselves. In exchange, they agreed to approve the funds that Marcos wanted himself such as his huge confidential (secretly disbursed) fund, which totaled P4.6 billion annually from 2024 to 2026.
Furthermore, Marcos had put into the budget the proposed funds which he could release at his discretion.
One of these was the Sagip fund (Strengthening Assistance for Government Infrastructure and Social Programs), which was a massive lump-sum allocation in the budget used to support infrastructure and social projects under unprogrammed appropriations.
The Supreme Court ruled that Sagip constituted a prohibited lump-sum appropriation because it transferred essential project-identification and allocation decisions to the executive branch after enactment. The court described Sagip as a “covert repository of lump-sum allocations for DPWH infrastructure, including flood-control projects.”
Sagip received P225 billion in the 2024 budget and P160 billion in the 2025 budget. Of the 2024 allocation, approximately P87 billion was associated with flood-control projects.
For 2025, the Marcos administration itself had proposed approximately P78 billion for Sagip. Congress increased the allocation to approximately P160 billion, an increase of P82 billion, or more than double the president’s original proposal.
Pork barrel
The Supreme Court had already declared the old congressional pork-barrel system unconstitutional in 2013. Yet more than a decade later, another lump-sum arrangement with pork-barrel characteristics emerged within the national budget, providing enormous discretion over infrastructure spending.
The court’s findings also identified other programs that benefited from the artificial fiscal space created by congressional budget adjustments.
These included the Department of Health’s medical assistance to indigents, the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s Ayuda sa Kapos ang Kita Program (AKAP), and the Department of Labor and Employment’s Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged or Displaced Workers (Tupad).
These programs were valuable tools for Marcos since they were directed at his or Romualdez’s discretion. They delivered infrastructure projects, medical assistance, cash aid and temporary employment to constituents of congressional representatives that he selected, in exchange for their support, especially for Sara Duterte’s impeachment. No wonder the House has been such a Marcos minion.
The Supreme Court’s findings concerning the bicameral conference committee are among the most disturbing parts of its ruling.
Independent
The bicameral committee is supposed to reconcile differences between the budget versions approved by the House and Senate. It is not intended to become an independent legislative body empowered to rewrite the budget behind closed doors.
Yet the court found that the committee made substantial changes without proper records of its discussions, explanations for increases and decreases, or documents supporting the alterations.
The court specifically noted that these omissions violated the rules of the House and Senate themselves.
Hundreds of billions of pesos were consequently rearranged through a process whose documentary record was inadequate to establish why particular changes had been made.
Whether the Marcos administration is the most corrupt since 1986 of course ultimately requires evidence of actual diversion of funds, fraudulent contracts, kickbacks, personal enrichment and the responsibility of particular officials. However, what the figures do establish is the extraordinary scale of the spending that could be mechanisms for corruption.
The Supreme Court has also made clear that the doctrine of operative fact, which protects certain irreversible transactions undertaken in good faith, “does not automatically shield the authors, proponents or implementers of unconstitutional measures from criminal, civil or administrative liability.” My reading of that statement is that the court is saying: “Impeach Marcos, criminally charge his accomplices.”
After all, he violated the Constitution he has sworn to uphold. Isn’t that a ground for impeachment much more serious than those hurled against Vice President Sara?
Justice Marvic Leonen, who wrote the decision, emphasized the gravity of Marcos’ and the Congress’ violation of the Constitution, in his very first three paragraphs:
“Every peso collected in taxes and fees represents labor rendered, needs deferred, perseverance, and sacrifice endured by our people. The General Appropriations Act must honor that sacrifice. It is among the most consequential enactments of government: It determines how public resources will be used to respond to our people’s suffering and to advance their hopes and aspirations. It has never been a catalogue of licenses to abuse or to steal. This court is asked again, through these petitions, to exercise its delicate constitutional duty to draw firmer constitutional boundaries against greed and abuse.”
Greed and abuse by Marcos and his accomplices, the Supreme Court in effect revealed.
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SC decision shows: Marcos Jr. regime the most corrupt since 1986
Source: Breaking News PH
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