Sen. Ping Lacson: 'Almost All' Senators Responsible for P100-Billion Insertions in 'Corrupt' National Budget

Public outrage and alarming concern over widespread corruption riddled in the country’s legislature and bureacracy has reached fever pitch over the last few weeks. No-nonsense Blue Ribbon Committee chairman Senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson has now pointed fingers at the previous Congress for massive budget insertions.

For context, this year’s national budget caught the ire of the public due to questionable budget insertions. President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. resorted to vetoing more than P194 billion items “inconsistent with his administration’s priorities.”

“For the Senate, the insertions amounted to at least P100 billion. I was surprised because these are individual insertions although they were held ‘for later release,” Senator Lacson, who returned to the Upper Chamber after winning a seat in the recent May polls, said in a statement.

This year’s spending plan amounting to P6.79 trillion also drew flak over unused funds meant for flood-control and other infrastructure projects.

President Marcos has waged a war against corruption after his administration’s probe on anomalous flood-control projects discovered only 15 contractors securing P100 billion of these projects since P2022. The government has spent about P545 billion in taxpayer money on these efforts nationwide, which translates to about 20 percent of all flood-control infrastructure projects in this time span.

His own cousin, former House Speaker Martin Romualdez resigned from his post after being tagged for these questionable funding insertions.

“It was humongous,” Lacson said. “I have never seen such amounts. Before PDAF (Priority Development Assistance Fund) was declared unconstitutional, ‘pork’ amounted to hundreds of millions. Now it’s at least P100 billion total for 24 senators alone.”

Reelected or senators from the previous Congress currently in office include siblings Alan Peter and Pia Cayetano, Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, JV Ejercito, former Senate President Francis “Chiz” Escudero, Jinggoy Estrada, Sherwin “Win” Gatchalian, Bong Go, Risa Hontiveros, Lito Lapid, Loren Legarda, Imee Marcos, Robin Padilla, Raffy Tulfo, Joel Villanueva, Mark Villar, and Miguel Zubiri.

The 19th Congress also included current Education Secretary Sonny Angara, Makati Mayor Nancy Binay, former Senate Minority Leader Koko Pimentel, Grace Poe, Bong Revilla, Francis Tolentino, and Cynthia Villar.

An independent commission to look into irregularities found in flood-control contracts has been cracking down on the revelations on the involvement of legislators fattening their pockets via kickbacks from ghost projects. This bombshell was dropped by controversial private contractors Sarah and Curlee Discaya, and former DPWH Bulacan assistant district engineer Brice Ericson Hernandez and other former DPWH officials putting senators such as Jinggoy Estrada, Joel Villanueva, Bong Revilla, Chiz Escudero, Nancy Binay, and other legislators in the hot seat over their alleged pocketing of these commissions of varying percentages.

Escudero, Binay, Villanueva, Estrada, Ako Bicol Party-list Rep. Zaldy Co, who is stillabroad as of theis writing, have denied accusations of receiving kickbacks off these projects that have amounted in the hundreds of billions respectively.

Lacson, who took over the Blue Ribbon committee mantle from neophyte senator but longtime congressman Rodante Marcoleta, raised the alarm that these massive budget insertions could be detrimental to the economy by stalling government projects meant for different levels of Philippine society.

The senator also questioned lawmakers at the ongoing plenary deliberations on next year’s government spending plan.

Marcos has said his government was leaning on scrapping new flood-control funding next year since his agencies still have P350 billion to work with in unused funding in the current budget.

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“We cannot deny there is a crisis in the Senate right now, because a number of its members are now involved,” Lacson said.

“The Senate is in greater scrutiny out of recency bias (we just elected some of them a few months ago) plus we are also seeing the sheer shamelessness of the Duterte bloc in their partisan actions,” Hansley Juliano, who teaches political science at the Ateneo de Manila University, told Esquire Philippines in a Facebook Messenger chat. “Senator Lacson has all the incentive to push this further if only to also keep scrutiny off him. If he plays it well and he fishes his fellow senators it might serve as greater plus points for him.”

The senator might still have to play his cards right since his move may be perceived as he “who smelt it, dealt it” play and might raise questions on his own innocence, Juliano added.

The recent flood-control corruption fiasco is seen to be one of the biggest graft scandals since the pork barrel scam from a decade ago, which allowed lawmakers to fund small-scale “ghost projects” in their jurisdictions that fell outside the national infrastructure program.

Changes in congressional leaderships have taken shape as both the Senate and House of Representatives have installed new leaders in Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III and Marcos-ally Faustino “Bojie” Dy III, respectively.

This is also happening amid an ongoing rift between the Dutertes and Marcoses and their associated allies within the legislature.

The country’s Upper Chamber is in the middle of its probe of irregularities in the DPWH's flood-mitigation projects, which have gone viral over social media platforms.

Former Senate President Escudero claimed in a statement that there is a “well-orchestrated plan” to distract the public from the real perpetrators of the flood control fiasco via attacks on sitting and former senators.

The massive kickbacks also triggered a state-mandated lifestyle check on all officials.

Ordinary Filipino citizens bear the brunt of systemic corruption as the country is highly vulnerable to massive flooding due to its aging drainage systems and geographical position.

According to the Marcos government’s latest investigation, more than 6,021 of flood-control projects that cost about P350 billion did not specify what type of flood control apparatus or structure needed to be built.

The National Bureau of Investigation on Sept. 26 sought for government prosecutors to file cases against these high-profile individuals tagged in the kickback scheme including Co, Escudero, Villanueva, former Senator Revilla, the Discayas, Hernandez, ex-DPWH engineer Henry Alcantara, among others.

On the unnecessary budget insertions, Lacson says there were other compelling items of interest in the records relating to this year’s national budget tagged for “for later release.”

“It’s good they weren’t released by Malacañang, but still, it was hundreds of billions,” the veteran lawmaker said.