Lack of media attention on the “worst budget ever”

THE NATIONAL budget holds the key for effective government, an instrument that sets the priorities for development, for services and benefits for the people, including infrastructure projects for the coming year. It should involve intense deliberation on the part of executive and legislative officials.
Described as the “worst budget ever” by economists and budget experts, the General Appropriations Act of 2025 reflects so much of what is wrong under the watch of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. His approval of the PHP6.235 trillion budget vetoed PHP194 billion in line items that he deemed “inconsistent with the administration’s priority programs.” But the budget remains deeply flawed, displaying a surfeit of self-interest among those in power.
Unfortunately, the lack of sustained coverage on the budget process allowed this pursuit of self-interest to pass with little public notice, until it was too late. The delays of revising would have enforced a reenactment of the previous budget, a practice which should be avoided at all times.
The attention media gave to the heat of Congress’ examination of the vice president’s request and use of confidential funds should have alerted the press to the need for watching budget hearings more closely, to check questionable requests for confidential funds as well as the inclusion of unprogrammed funds.
But scant reports on the budget hearing in 2024 indicated media’s lack of attention. Announcing the passage of the budget law on December 30, journalists did not call attention to the historical priority given to education as mandated by the Constitution. News reports did not show up the zero subsidy for health needs. These were done by columnists and other experts, pointing out why the signed budget was still problematic.
Stories about the lack of funds for public housing, for benefits running short, especially for the very poor, abound in the news. And yet newsrooms have not invested in sustained coverage of the budget process — from the executive proposal to congressional approval — where these shortages are rooted.
Media announced that the House of Representatives began budget discussions at committee-level in August; but reports to follow the discourse were few and far between. The Quad comm hearings and its discoveries, another serious matter, captured more time and space.
Media did report President Marcos’ certification of the General Appropriations Bill as urgent in September, without flagging the possibility of railroading the measure.
Coverage focused on budget cuts
The bicameral conference committee approved the 2025 PHP6.35 trillion budget in the evening of December 11. Immediate coverage online and on print the following day focused on the budget cuts to the OVP, the Department of Education (DepEd) and to PhilHealth, which received zero subsidy. Coverage also noted the retention of the “Ayuda para sa Kapos ang Kita” (AKAP) cash aid program, recalling that it used to be a pet project of House Speaker Martin Romualdez and is now implemented under the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).
Media focused on the exchange of reactions within the government and publicized the criticism of cuts for education and health by Senators Risa Hontiveros, Sherwin Gatchalian; including the statement issued by former senator and now DepEd Secretary Sonny Angara which scored the PHP12 billion slashed from his department.
The bicam committee stood pat on the budget cuts, saying they considered not just the funding needs of the agency but also its capacity to use its allocations; displaying a cluelessness about the great public need for medical assistance even for those who are not poor.
While reports cited what individual bicam members said, reports did not identify all the members who made the decision, a matter of great relevance to the public’s evaluation of these representatives. In general, these accounts did not cite outside experts for their views.
Columnists provide the critical analysis
Media refrained from stating the significance of objective facts on their own, the illegality of giving zero subsidy for PhilHealth and the unconstitutionality of a bigger share given to public works, rather than education.
Economists, fiscal policy experts and columnists in opinion sections in print and online quickly supplied the analysis, insight and interpretation.
JC Punongbayan, Sonny Africa, Kenneth Abante, Michael Tan, Anna Cristina Tuazon, Boo Chanco, Iris Gonzales, Jarius Bondoc and Tita Valderama all raised these crucial points that regular news coverage did not emphasize.
The opinion pieces also provided more detailed breakdowns, noting the reduced budgets for other agencies such as the Department of Agriculture and the DSWD, in comparison with the massive increases in the allocations to the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), the House itself, and unprogrammed funds.
Bondoc, Punongbayan and Tuazon all called out the bicam members’ reasoning for the cuts for DepEd and PhilHealth as due to mismanagement of previous allocations. They argued that this was a punitive move, putting the burden on citizens and letting agencies get away with accountability.
The opinion pieces expressed a strong consensus that the proposed budget is anti-Filipino; promoting patronage politics with the use of cash aid allocations in securing votes for the coming elections and enabling corruption through unprogrammed funds.
Abante and Africa agreed that the president should return the budget to the Congress. He did not, reviewing it instead with his Cabinet until the budget signing on December 30.
Africa also noted that the budget proposed by the president in July was already “deeply flawed.” In an interview with One News on December 16, Africa also said that Marcos’ certification of the budget proposal as urgent “set the framework for the lack of transparency in the budget process.”
Punongbayan had stressed in a Rappler column earlier in November that despite the Supreme Court’s ban on pork barrel, it can still exist “so long as it is pre-identified and baked into the budget of national government agencies.” Citing the study of budget expert Zy-za Suzara, Punongbayan said the past three national budgets allotted almost 20 percent to lawmakers’ pork, a finding that he said “should be dominating headlines — but it somehow doesn’t” – a criticism deserved by the media.
Critical observations based on evidence and facts belong in news accounts, written and incorporated in the copy as part of news interpretation to help the pubic understand what is going on. Relegated to opinion pages, these may be regarded as personal views.
Indeed, journalists must scale up their reporting on the making of the national budget and place them as news on all media platforms. This kind of coordinated coverage is something that legacy media can still try to do to create a national consciousness; perhaps, build the public consensus about the quality of government and its priorities and what can be done if these are misplaced.