You can't fool all of the people all of the time

As details of the 2025 National Budget came out, various sectors started calling it as a budget for members of Congress and not for the Philippines.

- CITO BELTRAN

First point made against the budget is that it violated the Constitution that states that the biggest allocation should be to education. Instead, it went to the DPWH.

Aside from robbing Filipino students the right to quality education and their future, Congress went on to rob Filipinos of quality medicine and facilities. While everybody has been focusing on PhilHealth, everyone has forgotten about all the cuts that have continuously been done to improvement and expansion of major hospitals etc.

So now we have a situation where President Bongbong Marcos has "Had to step up and promise to restore the allocations for the DepEd" and perhaps DOH/PhilHealth. But did he really have to step up or was it all part of a "zarzuela" or PR script that makes the President the guy who saves the day?

I know that in past administrations, there were people from Malacañang who monitor such things and advised the incumbent president on how things are going in the budget hearings. In some cases, things are even cleared or consulted with Malacañang. So how is it possible that members of Congress could simply butcher the government's proposed budget that is based on the 2025 program of government, slice and dice the allocations and then rewrite the funding priority?