[Rappler Investigates] Fill in the blanks

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Before anything else, Happy Chinese New Year! Gongxi facai or Xīnnián kuàilè! (Did I get it right?) Here’s to a good, if not better, new year of the wood snake!

Speaking of snakes, what’s your first compulsion when you see a blank in a document that’s supposed to be all complete? There must be some degree of metaphysical unease, isn’t it, like you want to fill it out yourself because it’s not supposed to be that way. But if you know you’re not supposed to, and you don’t want to be a snake, you hold off.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about the 2025 budget, with critics going as far as saying there were miraculous deeds that may have been unconstitutional. Why so? Among others — because of the very existence of the blanks in the bicameral conference committee report itself, which legislative technical staff were supposedly authorized to make final ministerial corrections on. 

This, according to allegations, is equivalent to grave abuse of discretion on the part of lawmakers. Legislative staff who allegedly filled in the blanks weren’t supposed to do so.

Our House reporter Dwight de Leon explains the other reasons here, including public works getting more than education, contrary to what’s mandated by the Constitution. 

But just so we’re all on the same page insofar as the budget process is concerned — everything begins with the executive branch proposing a budget that mirrors its priorities for the coming fiscal year. This is contained in the National Expenditure Program (NEP) prepared by the budget department, and which then goes to the House. The lower house prepares its General Appropriations Bill (GAB) after deliberations and dispatches it to the Senate, which then prepares its own version.

Differences in the two drafts are reconciled in the bicameral conference committee that consists of representatives of both chambers. The end product is a bicameral conference committee report, understood to be the final version of the budget separately ratified by the two houses. This goes back to the executive for signing into law by the President, resulting in the final General Appropriations Act, which covers the “annual operating requirements” of government agencies.

When the President accused his nemesis Rodrigo Duterte of lying over allegations that the bicam report they received contained blanks (insinuating that this gave the executive free rein to fill in the blanks), he was likely telling the truth. The blanks that were supposedly seen by administration critics had already been filled out. The big question is: who did?

The buzz is that the NEP and the GAB were practically the same so if there were drastic changes that treacherously crept into the bicam report, these could have been possible only with the blessings of the Senate. How true? In Filipino, nasilisihan o naisahan ba ang House (was the House tricked or outsmarted)? Senate President Chiz Escudero called critics’ allegations of unconstitutionality “unfair.”

Other related stories you shouldn’t miss:

• 2025 budget ‘blanks’: Billions involved in DA adjustments after ratification
• [WATCH] Inside Track: Marcos’ 2025 national budget is so bad

TEENAGE PREGNANCIES. Another big to-do is the debate about comprehensive sexuality education, which a group called Project Dalisay, claimed would corrupt children. They managed to grab the attention of the President and the public when they claimed (falsely) that Senate Bill 1979, or the proposed Prevention of Adolescent Pregnancy Act, which covers comprehensive sexuality education (CSE), would teach children how to masturbate. This was outright false. 

Instead, what the bill seeks to accomplish, among others, is to help children and teens protect themselves from health risks like sexually transmitted diseases and unsafe situations that could lead to sexual exploitation.

Among the biggest fears of the bill’s proponents is that its passage would be stalled because of the exaggerated and unfounded fears being fanned by Project Dalisay advocates. 

The data about teenage pregnancy in the Philippines, reporter Michelle Abad has found, should be alarming enough to compel passage of the proposed Senate bill. For instance, did you know that the number of registered live births from mothers younger than 15 has been increasing since 2021? According to Michelle, this implies rising cases of sexual abuse.

Without proper education and guidance in schools, adolescents will remain vulnerable, hapless victims.

TRUMP BACKTRACKS ON AID ORDER. As a final note, we’ve all seen how US President Donald Trump, like a tornado, has gone on a mad rampage turning things upside down as he had promised. A near-casualty was foreign aid, which he had ordered frozen to allow for a review. Fortunately, the White House budget office rescinded a memo that ordered the pause — a likely reaction to widespread opposition and legal challenges.

Very much affected would have been US Agency for International Development (USAID) funding of projects worldwide, including in the Philippines, which has received almost $5 billion in assistance since 1961. Projects here in the areas of education, environment, health, humanitarian assistance, disaster response, and economic development and governance would have stood on precarious ground.

Still, we should brace ourselves for the worst under a Trump presidency and look to diversify sources of funding for foreign assistance. In the meantime, here are other important stories you shouldn’t miss out on.

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– Rappler.com

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