Patronage Politics: How the Budget Betrays the People

In a recent interview with Cathy Yang on Thought Leaders, PHINMA (Philippine Investment Management) CEO Ramon del Rosario Jr. delivered a rare moment of clarity on the enduring problems of governance and fiscal accountability in the Philippines. His remarks, prompted by the controversy surrounding flood-control funds, exposed not only the inefficiencies of public spending but also the deeper moral lapses that continue to erode public trust.

Del Rosario described as “strange” the President’s public rebuke of corrupt officials—“Mahiya naman kayo!”—given that, as he noted, “It was his budget to start with.” The observation underscored a critical contradiction: how can a leader disown a spending plan that his own office designed, endorsed, and pushed through Congress? This irony lies at the heart of the ongoing flood-control scandal, which has been plagued by allegations of overpriced or nonexistent projects.

More than an indictment of administrative failure, Del Rosario’s statement was a broader warning about how the national budget has devolved into a tool of patronage—a means of rewarding political allies rather than serving citizens. In a country where public works have long been treated as political currency, this critique resonates deeply. 

The national budget, Del Rosario implied, is not merely an accounting instrument but a moral document. It reveals what the government values and whom it chooses to protect. When flood-control funds vanish while communities remain submerged, the figures tell a story of misplaced priorities and moral neglect.

Equally significant was Del Rosario’s emphasis on accountability. Once public funds are approved and released, officials often seek to evade responsibility. Yet leadership, he argued, demands ownership of the entire process—from proposal to implementation. Governance is not about pointing fingers; it is about stewardship and moral consistency.

Del Rosario’s prescriptions were neither radical nor utopian. They were grounded in common sense and sound governance: transparency by default, accountability at the top, and adherence to scientific principles rather than political convenience. 

Effective flood control, he reminded, is not about pouring concrete indiscriminately but about managing water intelligently—through reforestation, disciplined zoning, adequate drainage, and long-term planning. Public funds should follow the science, not the politics.

What distinguishes Del Rosario’s intervention is its tone of civic decency and constructive criticism. He did not indulge in moral grandstanding or partisan rhetoric. Instead, he articulated a vision of governance anchored in responsibility and foresight—qualities that have become increasingly scarce in public discourse. His reminder that “It was his budget to start with” stands out as a quiet act of courage amid the noise and deflection that dominate the national conversation.

If taken seriously, Del Rosario’s message could reshape public expectations about governance. Each line in the national budget would be viewed not as a favor to be distributed, but as a promise to be fulfilled. Infrastructure projects—bridges, dikes, and canals—would once again serve the public interest rather than private gain. 

In essence, budgets can either purchase public trust or subsidize private greed. Del Rosario’s appeal was for the former: that the nation’s finances be guided by moral integrity, transparency, and science-based policymaking.

Such clarity of thought and principle is a reminder that effective governance begins with the courage to accept responsibility. In a time when public confidence is waning, Del Rosario’s words reaffirm that good sense and moral stewardship still have a rightful place in the national dialogue.

The Lame Duck in Malacañang

It is still three long years before Filipinos again troop to the polls in May 2028, yet President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. already bears the air of a lame duck. In politics, perception is everything—and the prevailing one is that of a leader adrift, besieged by scandals, deserted by allies, and unsure how to steady the ship of state amid gathering storms.

A Presidency Losing Its Pulse

The anti-corruption rallies growing in number across the country have become a barometer of public frustration. Once dismissed as scattered dissent, they now reflect a more dangerous undercurrent: a citizenry rediscovering its voice. Each protest that fills the streets is a reminder that the promise of “unity” has collapsed into paralysis. Even the once-pliant bureaucracy senses the drift—projects stall, appointments freeze, and the Cabinet seems to function on autopilot.

The justice system, meanwhile, moves at its characteristic glacial pace. The investigations into alleged corruption in infrastructure funds, procurement anomalies, and favoritism within agencies lumber along—too slow to satisfy the public’s hunger for accountability, yet too visible to be ignored. This half-light of uncertainty—where wrongdoing is suspected but unpunished—is the worst possible environment for governance.

Perilous Vacuum of Power

In any democracy, a president who can no longer command confidence becomes more than ineffectual; he becomes a risk factor. When the chief executive is perceived as weak, the entire institutional architecture begins to creak. Opportunists smell blood. Ambitious politicians start positioning themselves for the next election cycle. Even within the armed forces, whispers of “restoring order” can find sympathetic ears among adventurists nostalgic for “discipline.”

The Philippines has walked this knife’s edge before. A vacuum at the top tempts those in uniform who believe, wrongly, that national salvation lies in barracks rather than ballots. The longer this administration drifts, the greater the temptation for rash acts that could imperil democratic continuity.

Governance Under Siege

To expect Bongbong Marcos to govern effectively under these conditions is to expect the impossible. His legitimacy has been eroded not only by scandal but by inertia. The break with Vice President Sara Duterte fractured his coalition beyond repair; the Senate and House are now battlefields of shifting loyalties. Even within his own family and inner circle, fractures are whispered about.

No president can lead when his every directive is second-guessed, when his Cabinet fears the next exposé, and when the streets echo with calls for resignation. The “baggages” of political indebtedness, historical denialism, and administrative indecision have finally caught up with him.

The Democratic Cost of Drift

An ineffectual president for the next three years is dangerous not just for the Palace but for the Republic. The business climate suffers when uncertainty reigns. The bureaucracy stagnates. Populist demagogues thrive on public disgust. And reformist energy—so vital in moments of national disillusionment—gets wasted on survival rather than reconstruction.

The tragedy is not merely that Marcos Jr. may limp to the end of his term, but that in doing so, he could drag down faith in democratic governance itself. When citizens conclude that elections only yield mediocrity, they start looking elsewhere for saviors.

Where the Country Stands

There is still time—barely—for the president to act with statesmanship: to accept accountability, to enable institutional reforms, even to step aside if his continued stay becomes untenable. A dignified exit is better than a drawn-out implosion. But the hour is late, and the writing is already on the wall.

The real question now is not whether Bongbong Marcos can recover his authority, but whether Philippine democracy can survive his decline intact. The nation cannot afford three years of drift, indecision, and distraction. It needs moral energy, not merely political endurance.

A lame duck can still quack—but it cannot lead a flight.

Budget Insertions and Moral Erosion: The Hidden Pandemic in Congress

 A Virus Without Symptoms

The pandemic may have ended, but another contagion lingers—one that infects not the lungs but the nation’s moral bloodstream. It spreads quietly in committee rooms and late-night bicameral meetings, transmitted not by coughs but by signatures. Its name is budget insertion—a mutation of corruption that hides beneath the language of “allocations,” “amendments,” and “local development funds.”

Each year, as the national budget thickens to thousands of pages, the virus multiplies. Billions of pesos appear almost by magic—inserted after hearings are done, after scrutiny fades, after public attention has shifted to Christmas or celebrity gossip. The result is a ledger swollen not by the people’s needs but by political greed.

The Anatomy of an Insertion

On paper, a “budget insertion” sounds technical, even harmless. Legislators, after all, must represent their districts. Who could object to a road here, a health center there, a flood control project somewhere in the lowlands? But the danger lies not in what is visible—but in what is hidden.

An insertion is a post-approval addition—a fund smuggled into the budget after the President’s proposal has been debated. It is not a crime by definition, but it is a crime against transparency. In essence, it transforms the national budget from a policy document into a political buffet.

It is, in truth, the same pork with a different flavor. The Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) was once its name. When public outrage boiled over in 2013, the Supreme Court struck it down. But like all resilient viruses, pork reinvented itself—now coded as “insertions,” “amendments,” or “agency requests.” The nomenclature changes; the appetite remains.

When Morality Is Amended

The real casualty is not merely fiscal discipline but moral order. When billions can be quietly re-channeled with no one accountable, the entire architecture of governance begins to rot.

Budget insertions erode three pillars of a republic:

• Trust. Citizens lose faith not only in their lawmakers but in democracy itself. Each scandal confirms the suspicion that the government is a syndicate in Barong Tagalog.

• Meritocracy. Public works are no longer based on need or efficiency but on political kinship. The flood control project that worsens flooding is not an accident—it is the logical outcome of corruption by design.

• Accountability. Oversight hearings become theatre; inquiries are launched to distract, not to discipline.

When every peso becomes negotiable, principles become expendable.

The Culture of Silence

Why, then, is there so little outrage? Perhaps because the infection is bipartisan. Both administration and opposition dip their hands into the same pot. They merely quarrel over who gets the larger ladle.

Inside the bureaucracy, the disease has become routine. Career officials, once wary, now shrug: “Ganyan talaga.” To protest is to risk one’s post; to comply is to survive. Even the citizenry, worn down by scandal fatigue, has developed moral calluses. Wala namang malinis.

Ten years ago, people marched against pork. Today, they scroll past it. Outrage has become vintage. We have normalized what once enraged us. I hope I'm wrong.

The Illusion of Development

Every insertion has a story—a school building that never opened, a road that leads nowhere, a seawall that collapses in the first storm. Yet all are wrapped in the rhetoric of “progress.”

It is a cruel irony that while the government borrows billions for “nation-building,” much of it builds only private fortunes. A congressman’s name engraved on a waiting shed has become the new cathedral of gratitude.

The tragedy lies not in the waste alone but in the deception. These insertions steal not just money but meaning. They turn public service into patronage, governance into gossip, citizenship into spectatorship.

Rebuilding the Immune System

What can cure a moral epidemic? Not another sermon, but structural reform.

1. Full Disclosure. Every amendment after the bicameral conference must be published line by line, with sponsoring legislators named.

2. Independent Citizen Audits. Civil society and universities should partner with the Commission on Audit (COA) to review local projects funded by insertions.

3. Digital Transparency. A public portal tracking funds from proposal to completion—allowing citizens to see where their taxes truly go.

4. Ban on Midnight Insertions. No new items allowed once the bicameral conference closes. Sunlight, after all, is still the best disinfectant.

But reform will mean little if morality itself remains compromised. Laws can close loopholes; only conscience can close temptation.

Lessons from the Floods

Perhaps nothing symbolizes our predicament more than the yearly floods that drown our cities. Billions are spent on “flood control,” yet the waters keep rising. Why? Because the funds are controlled by politicians, not by engineers.

In 1986, the Filipino people rose against electoral fraud. Today, it may be budget fraud that drowns us. The floodwaters outside our homes are reflections of the corruption inside our institutions.

When Congress treats the national budget as personal property, the nation becomes one big calamity area—declared, redeclared, and never recovered.

The Real Pandemic

A nation can survive calamities, coups, and even dictatorships. What it cannot survive is the slow death of moral immunity. For when wrongdoing becomes routine and silence becomes consent, the republic’s soul begins to decay.

The real pandemic is not viral—it is moral. Its first carrier is greed; its final symptom is apathy. And until Congress cleanses itself of this hidden infection, every budget will be a patient in critical condition.

For in the end, no vaccine can cure a conscience that no longer feels sick.

Snap Elections as Reset, Justice as Reckoning

Introduction

When corruption scandals reach a tipping point, citizens naturally search for a way out. Today, with the flood control controversy eroding public trust in government, the proposal for a snap election has resurfaced. Yet critics quickly retort: “Ano ang silbi ng snap election kung ang mahalal ulit ay pare-parehong kurakot? Dapat kayong mga nasa pwesto ang magbago.”

At first glance, that objection seems sensible. Why hold another election if the outcome is the same cycle of plunder? But this line of reasoning traps us in a classic chicken-and-egg dilemma: we need honest officials to fix a corrupt system, but we need a reformed system to elect honest officials. If we wait for politicians to change on their own, we wait forever. If we wait for voters to become perfectly discerning, we wait in vain.

The Constitutional Question

Here lies the complication: unlike in 1986, when Ferdinand Marcos Sr. called a snap election under the 1973 Constitution, the 1987 Constitution no longer provides for such a mechanism. The president has a fixed six-year term, with no reelection, and there is no explicit provision for dissolving government and calling an early presidential election.

So, how can a snap election be done legally today? Only through extraordinary political and constitutional means:

Amendment or Revision of the Constitution – Congress, sitting as a Constituent Assembly or through a Constitutional Convention, may insert a provision enabling a special election. This is the “textbook” legal path, but it is slow and uncertain.

Congressional Action for Early Elections – Congress has authority to set the date of elections (Article VI, Sec. 8 for special legislative polls). Extending this principle to the presidency would be controversial but could be attempted if backed by broad consensus.

Resignation + Special Election – If a president resigns, the vice president succeeds. The only way to “return the choice to the people” is if both positions are vacated (by resignation, removal, or political settlement) and Congress calls a special election to fill the vacancies.

Extra-Constitutional but Political – As 1986 showed, if the sitting president himself calls for an election outside the Constitution, it can still gain legitimacy if accepted by the opposition and by the people. The danger is that legality is weak, but legitimacy may carry it through.

In other words, today’s Constitution locks the doors against a snap election. But as history has shown, when institutions are paralyzed by corruption, political will and public demand sometimes pry those doors open. The legal hurdles are formidable, but political crises have a way of bending rigid structures. What seems unconstitutional on paper may become unavoidable in practice when legitimacy collapses.

Elections as Reset Button, Not Magic Wand

A snap election is not a cure-all. It will not automatically cleanse politics of greed. But it acts as a reset button—a way for citizens to withdraw their mandate from discredited leaders and reassert accountability. Without such a mechanism, those in power only grow bolder, thinking the public is powerless to respond.

The 1986 snap election offers a lesson. It was marred by fraud, but it triggered a massive people’s movement that forced the world’s spotlight on Philippine democracy. The perception of massive cheating became the spark that ignited EDSA. That imperfect election, far from being useless, became the turning point for regime change. Even flawed elections can open doors when citizens seize the moment.

But while elections can reset political legitimacy, they cannot by themselves dismantle entrenched systems of corruption. That requires justice.

Justice Must Walk Side by Side With Snap Elections

Still, elections alone are not enough. To restore credibility, a snap election today must be accompanied by honest-to-goodness prosecution of those implicated in the current scandal. Politics and justice must move together: one withdraws the people’s mandate, the other ensures criminal liability.

Post-EDSA, the call was not just for new leadership but also for accountability. Marcos cronies faced charges in the Sandiganbayan; the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) was created to recover ill-gotten wealth. While results were uneven, these efforts showed that regime change and prosecution had to go hand in hand.

If elections proceed without prosecutions, the whole exercise risks being dismissed as a political spectacle. Conversely, if prosecutions are pursued without elections, the same tainted leadership still clings to power. It is their combination that sends the strongest message—that corruption has consequences, both at the ballot box and in the courts.

This dual approach also tempers cynicism. People are less likely to dismiss a snap election as “useless” if they see corrupt officials facing genuine legal consequences. Justice gives substance to the reset.

How to Break the Loop

The comment that “politicians should simply change their ways” appeals to conscience. But conscience is unreliable when unchecked by institutions. What history teaches us is clear: politicians rarely change unless forced to—by pressure from citizens, by the threat of losing office, and by the certainty of legal accountability.

Breaking the chicken-and-egg cycle of corruption requires more than just elections and prosecutions. It also demands structural and cultural change:

• Institutional Reforms First (System Overhaul) – Strengthen checks such as COMELEC independence, campaign finance rules, party reforms, and transparency. Even if politicians are tempted, the system makes corruption harder. This way, elections are more meaningful.

• Incremental Cultural Change – Waiting for a “totally honest” electorate is unrealistic. But small steps—public education, anti-dynasty awareness, watchdog groups—can slowly tilt voter behavior.

• Trigger Events (Catalysts) – Crises like the flood control scandals can shake the status quo and create public demand for cleaner leadership. These are opportunities for movements or coalitions to push honest candidates forward.

• Parallel Track – It doesn’t have to be sequential (“system first, then leaders” or “leaders first, then system”). Often both evolve together. You elect a few reformists, they push small changes, which then allow more reformists to rise in the next cycle.

Reform, therefore, is not a single event but a process of pushing in many directions at once. Elections may provide the spark, prosecutions the substance, and reforms the structure that ensures gains are not rolled back.

A Call to Citizens

We must not fall into fatalism—the idea that “lahat naman kurakot” so why bother? Every crisis opens a window. Every scandal is also an opportunity to push the line of accountability further. The task of citizens is to demand both political reset and judicial reckoning. One without the other is incomplete; together they form the path to real reform.

The floodwaters of corruption have risen too high. Like in 1986, when the cheating in the snap election turned outrage into action, today’s scandals can also be the breaking point. Constitution or no constitution, the public must insist on two things: a reset and a reckoning.

Only then can we break free from the endless cycle, where the same problems hatch again and again like an unbroken chicken and egg. The lesson of our history is clear: when the people press the reset button and pair it with real justice, change, however imperfect, becomes not just possible but inevitable.

Floods, Corruption, and Snap Elections 2025: 1986 All Over Again?

Introduction

In the Philippines today, the political climate is beginning to echo the upheavals of 1986. Back then, Ferdinand Marcos called a snap election for February 7, 1986, hoping to reassert his mandate. Instead, the widespread perception of massive cheating unleashed a political storm. 

It created an atmosphere of anomic instability—dark clouds of anger, lightning strikes of defection, and gale-force protests—that culminated in the historic People Power uprising later that month. Forty years later, another tempest has emerged with similar volatility: flood control corruption.

If the fraudulent snap election symbolized the arrogance and decay of a dying dictatorship, the billion-peso scandals in flood control projects have come to represent the entrenched rot of governance in our time. The floods are not just natural disasters; they are man-made calamities—storms born of siphoned budgets, substandard infrastructure, and a political class fattened on pork-barrel largesse.

The Parallels: 1986 and 2025

1. Crisis of Legitimacy

1986: Marcos still commanded military loyalty and controlled the electoral machinery, but the brazen fraud of the February 7 snap elections destroyed his moral authority. The cheating became the eye of a storm, destabilizing his rule until the People Power revolution swept him away.

2025: While the ruling coalition still claims strength, the spectacle of ghost dikes, overpriced pumping stations, and favored contractors has eroded confidence. Each downpour exposes the cracks, and every flood swells into a storm of discontent.

2. Middle Class Anger

1986: The urban middle class was jolted awake by the COMELEC walkout and televised fraud. Their outrage gathered like storm clouds and burst into massive street protests.

2025:  Today, it is the middle class that bears the brunt of every flood—cars destroyed, homes submerged, jobs interrupted. Their anger is no longer distant or abstract; it has become a storm surge, rising fast and eroding what little trust remains in government.

3. Fractured Elites

1986: Key figures from business, the Church, and even Marcos’s allies began distancing themselves after the election fraud, sensing the typhoon about to hit.

2025: Cracks are forming in today’s ruling alliances. When the very families who bankroll flood control projects are also the families funding campaigns, political storms brew within the palace gates.

The Differences: 1986 vs 2025

1. The Nature of the Trigger

1986: A single dramatic event—the perception of massive cheating in the February 7 snap elections—ignited a storm of outrage almost overnight.

2025: Corruption in flood control is a slow-burning storm—each rainfall adds water, each ghost project piles wind to the gale. The anger builds cumulatively, not explosively.

2. The Role of Social Media

1986: Newspapers, Radio Veritas, and television acted as storm sirens, rallying people into the streets.

2025: Social media is a swirling whirlwind—spreading outrage instantly, but also dispersing energy, mixing truth with disinformation, and complicating sustained mobilization.

3. The International Context

1986: The Cold War framed Marcos’s regime, and U.S. pressure acted like a typhoon warning, pushing Marcos to the brink.

2025: The geopolitical climate is multipolar, a storm with many winds. The U.S. still wields influence, but China, ASEAN, and global markets now buffet Philippine politics, making external pressure less decisive.

4. Opposition Leadership

1986: Cory Aquino became the calm at the storm’s center—moral, unifying, and steady amid chaos. She gave Filipinos a clear direction for democratic renewal.

2025: The opposition is fragmented, storm-tossed without a unifying figure. Some speculate that Vice President Sara Duterte could assume such a role if her father were to pass away. But unlike Cory, who embodied renewal, Sara is tied to dynastic politics and carries a polarizing legacy. If she does not calm the storm, she may deepen it.

5. The Military Factor

1986: Military defections—Enrile and Ramos breaking away—were lightning bolts that split Marcos’s fortress.

2025: Today’s armed forces are more professionalized, less openly political, but storms of factionalism still swirl beneath the surface. Whether lightning strikes again is uncertain.

6. A Lesser Role for the Church: No Cardinal Sin

1986: Cardinal Jaime Sin’s call over Radio Veritas was the thunderclap that summoned millions to EDSA, lending the storm moral power.

2025: The Church is quieter now, its voice a drizzle compared to the past. We definitely have no Cardinal Sin. Civil society groups, NGOs, and digital networks have become the new storm-bringers.

The Probability of a “Snap Election”

The prospect of a snap election—or its modern variant, an early destabilizing vote—is not far-fetched. History shows Filipinos have little patience for leaders who appear both corrupt and incompetent in times of crisis. The next presidential election, that of May 8, 2028, is two years and seven months away: many of them might not be willing to wait that long. 

But the probability depends on two brewing storm fronts:

Escalation of the Flood Crisis. If another catastrophic flood paralyzes Metro Manila and Central Luzon, exposing shoddy DPWH projects, public outrage could spiral into a typhoon of accountability.

Elite Defection. If key political blocs—business magnates, regional kingpins, even factions within the ruling party—withdraw support, the ruling coalition could collapse like a levee in a storm, just as Marcos’s allies did in 1986.

Projections

Opposition Opportunity. A credible opposition figure could channel the flood narrative as Cory Aquino once harnessed the electoral fraud storm. The challenge: fragmentation and lack of a unifying anchor.

Youth Mobilization. In 1986, students filled the streets; in 2025, youth anger swirls faster through social media, like a tropical storm forming in real time. Viral flood videos may unleash a generational backlash.

Church and Civil Society. Then, the Catholic Church’s pastoral letters shook consciences. Today, civil society groups—engineers, environmentalists, civic clubs—may carry the lightning rod of moral outrage.

What Lies Ahead

Short-Term: Expect protest actions to gather like thunderstorms, framed not in ideology but in urgent demands: “Stop the Flood, Stop the Theft.”

Medium-Term: If corruption exposés multiply, whistleblowers may strike like lightning from DPWH and LGU offices, forcing the regime into a desperate electoral gambit—a premature plebiscite, referendum, or snap election.

Long-Term: Whether or not a snap election is called, the erosion of legitimacy could become a typhoon-force rupture. It may bring a peaceful transition—or a more turbulent reconfiguration involving military adventurism.

Conclusion: The Coming Deluge

In 1986, it was the perception of massive cheating in the February 7 snap election that unleashed the storm that toppled Marcos. In 2025, it may be the floodwaters lapping at doorsteps that spark the next reckoning. 

History does not repeat itself exactly, but rhymes are unmistakeable. And the rhyme of our political history suggests that when Filipinos are battered by both flood and fraud, they will reach for the first lifeboat—be it a snap election, a protest wave, or a revolution by another name.

The danger is that while storms may sweep away rulers, the channels for genuine reform are weaker now than in 1986. With a fragmented opposition, a less assertive Church, and dynasties steering the ship, the lifeboat may drift in circles.

The challenge for Filipinos, then, is not only to weather the storm but also to rebuild institutions strong enough to withstand both the natural disasters and the corruption.