2026 GAA is proof that Congress is a den of unrepentant thieves – BAYAN

2026 GAA is proof that Congress is a den of unrepentant thieves – BAYAN

On the day of the expected ratification of the Bicameral Conference Committee report on the 2026 General Appropriations Bill (GAB), Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) strongly condemns Congress for railroad­ing a national budget that is brazenly designed for plunder, political patronage, and state repression. Gving their members and the public just one day to study the document prior to ratification shows their ill intention to ram the document down the people’s throats.

The final 2026 GAB up for ratification is incontrovertible proof that Congress has become a den of unrepentant thieves. Despite public outrage over corruption and the exposure of massive pork barrel abuses, lawmakers have once again conspired to pass a budget full of funds they can steal and resources meant to strengthen state fascism and the suppression of dissent.

The 2026 budget is riddled with pork barrel in all its forms – hard pork, soft pork, presidential pork, congressional and senatorial allocables, LGU pork, generals’ pork, and ballooned Unprogrammed Appropriations – amounting to a staggering P695 billion placed under discretionary control. These are the very mechanisms through which public funds are siphoned off through kickbacks, political favors, and patronage networks.

At the same time, Congress has chosen to starve essential social services. Despite much ado about increased appropriations for social services, the budgets for education, health, social protection, and government workers’ benefits are still far from adequate, while pork-laden infrastructure, patronage ayuda programs and lump-sum funds were expanded. Ang problema ng budget ay hindi kakulangan ng pera kundi kakulangan ng konsensya.

Photo from The Catalyst

Worse, the 2026 GAA massively increases funding for confidential and intelligence funds, militarization, and counterinsurgency programs, alongside an expanded AFP modernization budget with little to no public disclosure. These allocations are not about national security. They are about state fascism—about using public money to intimidate, surveil, and silence those who protest corruption, demand accountability, and defend democratic rights.

Government officials like to brand the 2026 budget as a “people-centered budget.” This claim is true only if the “people” they refer to are their fellow political dynasties, allies in the ruling coalition, and those with access to allocables and embedded pork barrel projects.

Para sa karaniwang mamamayan, ang “people-centered” ay hungkag na retorika. The budget remains structurally designed to preserve political patronage, forcing the poor to line up for endorsements, guarantee letters, and favors from politicians instead of ensuring universal, rights-based access to services.

The declaration that the 2026 GAA is “corruption-free” is the most explosive lie that will greet the new year. In the face of massive lump-sum funds, discretionary releases, opaque allocations, and entrenched pork barrel systems, this claim is not only false but an insult to a people already burdened by high prices, job insecurity, and declining public services.

The 2026 GAA is not a budget for national development. It is a budget for thievery and repression.

BAYAN calls on the Filipino people to reject the 2026 General Appropriations Act, to expose the lies behind the “people-centered” rhetoric, and to intensify collective action against corruption, political dynasties, and authoritarian rule.#