BAYAN REITERATES CALL FOR SCRAPPING OF ALL FORMS OF PORK BARREL IN THE NATIONAL BUDGET

BAYAN REITERATES CALL FOR SCRAPPING OF ALL FORMS OF PORK BARREL IN THE NATIONAL BUDGET

In a protest action held outside of the House of Representatives (HoR), BAYAN-allied organizations expressed outrage over the Bicameral Conference Committee-approved P6.352-trillion 2025 national budget.

BAYAN reiterates its strong opposition to the ballooning confidential intelligence funds (CIF) allocated to the Office of the President (OP) and other government agencies for intelligence and security purposes. Taxpayers’ money fund the Philippine government’s “counterinsurgency program” that has resulted in grave human rights violations from red tagging, surveillance to military ops in rural and urban communities, enforced disappearances, illegal arrests and detention to extra-judicial killings. The imperialist dictate in the national budget is apparent not just in the IMF-WB’s prescription to prioritize debt servicing and military spending. Prominently featured in the CIF of Marcos Jr and Duterte is a Philippine adaptation of US COIN (counterinsurgency).

Marcos allies have been riding on the growing public outcry on VP Duterte’s CIF spending. However, they do so to conceal the larger and more questionable CIF allocation to the OP. We decry the swelling of Marcos Jr’s lump sum and discretionary funds, which include special purpose funds and unprogrammed allocations in the past two years. Marcos Jr’s spending for CIF amounted to 4.56 billion in the same period, making the President of the land the biggest pork barrel spender.

The decision of the bicameral committee to increase confidential funds and pork barrel is none other than the perpetuation and normalization of bureaucrat capitalism. Instead of prioritizing social services, legislators made sure that next year’s budget will give them an advantage in the elections by bloating pork barrel programs like AKAP. Bayan reiterates our call for the complete abolition of the Marcos Jr CIF and the pork barrel system. This significant amount of the national budget should be allocated for more pressing needs such as education, healthcare, social housing, food subsidies, full support for agricultural development and other social services.

Bayan stands with the Filipino people in condemning the plunder of our national resources by politicians led by Marcos. We call for more protests to abolish Marcos Jr’s CIF, eliminate the pork barrel system and put an end to bureaucrat capitalism.

Bayan also demanded accountability for corrupt officials and asserted that House members should endorse the impeachment complaint against Duterte and immediately transmit this to the Senate.