It appears that if a government agency is even remotely critical of the government, or not aligned politically, it can expect a more adversarial Congress. This selective application of the power of checks and balances is but one manifestation of our country’s weak rule of law.
In congressional hearings, you know that sparks are about to erupt when people are standing up.
This week, that’s exactly what happened at the House of Representatives when the appropriations committee resumed its hearing on the 2025 budget of the Office of the Vice President (OVP).
No one came from the OVP, including Vice President Sara Duterte herself, even if lawmakers waited for an extra hour before resuming the hearing. This visibly and understandably incensed lawmakers, who were rightly doing their job of scrutinizing executive agencies’ budgets.
Next, Duterte’s allies in the House literally rose from their seats and attacked their colleagues — led by the committee’s vice-chair, Representative Stella Quimbo of the 2nd District of Marikina City — who appeared to be ganging up on the Vice President.
Sagip Representative Rodante Marcoleta said in a mix of English and Filipino: “There should be no more questioning, but what took place [last time] was a barrage of questions. That’s why I’m asking why did we do that earlier. Are we not already respecting a tradition well-kept?”
For his part, Representative Isidro Ungab of the 3rd District of Davao City said, “Rulings of the chair form parts of the rules because it will set a precedent. If we will set a precedent now that we are discarding traditional parliamentary courtesy, then goodbye parliamentary courtesy.”
They recalled that since the time of former vice president Noli De Castro (who served under the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration) the OVP’s budget was never scrutinized year in, year out. In past years, the OVP’s budget hearing was always extremely quick — a “tradition” that ought to be observed and applied in the case of Duterte.
Quimbo was trying to keep her cool, but could not effectively manage Duterte’s allies. Marcoleta moved to terminate the OVP budget proceedings, but lost to an overwhelming vote of 45-3.
The next day, Quimbo appeared before media to announce that the appropriations committee is moving to reduce the OVP’s proposed budget from P2.037 billion to a much smaller P733.198 million. That’s more in line with the average budget requested by Duterte’s predecessor in the OVP, Leni Robredo, whose budget never reached P1 billion throughout her six years in office.
This massive budget cut of 64% for Duterte’s OVP is a huge deal, and they’re bound to feel the pinch. The House wants the OVP’s financial assistance budget brought down to zero (a 100% cut), followed by a cut in professional services (88%), rent/lease expenses (60%), supplies (50%), and utility expenses (38%).
On the one hand, I’m quite pleased that Congress at last is making much-needed adjustments to the OVP budget which exploded since Duterte took office.
The figure below shows that the biggest jump in this budget happened between 2022 (Robredo’s last budget) and 2023 (Duterte’s first budget). Among the budget items that skyrocketed were financial assistance/subsidies, confidential expenses, supplies and materials expenses, and professional services.
(Note that the OVP already did not request confidential expenses for 2025, after they got burned by public backlash and after P73 million of that got disallowed by the Commission on Audit.)
Yet I’m not entirely satisfied with the proceedings.
First, recall that Quimbo was the one defending Duterte’s OVP budget last year. This time, though, the table has turned, and Quimbo is the one leading the scrutiny of the OVP budget.
What changed in just a year? The Uniteam has broken up, and the Dutertes are now fighting the Marcoses. Note that Quimbo is heavily allied now with House Speaker Martin Romualdez, the President’s cousin. So it’s pretty obvious that the extra scrutiny on the OVP now has something to do with the shift in the political winds.
The best evidence of this is that the Office of the President (OP) itself got a free pass in its own budget deliberation on September 9. This, even if there are even more dubious OP budget items. They’re requesting a dizzying P10.506 billion budget: a fifth of which (P2.25 billion) will go to confidential funds, another fifth (P2.31 billion) will go to intelligence funds, and a tenth (P1.054) will go to travel expenses.
If Congress is doing its job of scrutinizing agency budgets honestly, forthrightly, and independently, then it would exercise just as much scrutiny of the OP as the OVP.
But at the same time that the appropriations committee shunned “tradition” in the case of the OVP, it observed the same tradition in the case of the OP.
It appears that if a government agency or instrumentality is even remotely critical of the government, or not aligned politically, they need to expect a more adversarial Congress. This selective application of the power of checks and balances is but one manifestation of our country’s weak rule of law—which, I argued last week in my column, is bad for business and the economy.
In instances like this, the budget process is less a venue for extracting accountability and transparency, and more of a bully pulpit. – Rappler.com
JC Punongbayan, PhD is an assistant professor at the UP School of Economics and the author of False Nostalgia: The Marcos “Golden Age” Myths and How to Debunk Them. In 2024, he received The Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) Award for economics. Follow him on Instagram (@jcpunongbayan) and Usapang Econ Podcast.
