From “10,000 Projects Will Die” to “We’ll Make Do” – A Love Story in Budget Flip-Flops

Directed by Vince Dizon: A Heartwarming Tale of Apologies, Insufficient Data, and Heroic Austerity

By Louis ‘Barok‘ C. Biraogo — December 20, 2025

SECRETARY Vince Dizon wants a round of applause for agreeing to do his job with only 60% of the requested budget. Such a martyr for arithmetic.

Meanwhile, in a Davao warehouse, a P96-million “ghost” flood control project just got a body—contractor Sarah Discaya, arrested in handcuffs alongside her accomplices, as the Ombudsman finally moves on one of the countless phantom infrastructures that have swallowed billions while real communities drown.

***“From ‘10 000 corpses of projects’ to ‘We’ll ghost them at 60 % off!’ – clearance sale today!”***

The Performance of “Making Do”

Dizon’s declaration that the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) will “make do” with P529 billion for 2026—slashed from the P881 billion proposed in the National Expenditure Program—isn’t born of sudden humility.

Weeks earlier, he aggressively lobbied to restore cuts, warning that 10,000 projects would collapse without an extra P45 billion. He even issued a formal apology to the Senate for submitting “limited and insufficient data” on construction costs.

Then, abruptly: capitulation. “We’ll make do,” he says, promising future savings and project modifications to fill the gaping hole.

This is not humility. This is a carefully scripted performance of managed defeat—a good soldier saluting while the real battles over patronage and pork rage behind closed doors.

The Grotesque Backdrop: Ghosts in the Floodwaters

The DPWH has long been the nation’s corruption black hole. Today, it reels from the 2025 flood control scandal:

Hundreds of “ghost” projects—paid for, never built—exposed from Bulacan to Davao Occidental.
Contractors like the Discayas charged with malversation over imaginary dikes and unfinished walls.
Frozen assets, fraud audits by the Commission on Audit, and a monopoly of favored builders pocketing kickbacks while vulnerable barangays flood annually.

Dizon launched a transparency portal in November, vowing a “clean” budget with every cost reduction published.

A noble digital monument to what should have been. In reality: collapsed embankments, arrested officials, and public trust eroded faster than any typhoon-scoured riverbank.

The New Pork: Allocables and the Marcos Family Secret Sauce

The deepest rot is the resurrected pork barrel—the allocable and non-allocable funds meticulously exposed by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ).

Despite the Supreme Court’s 2013 ban on the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), pork thrives inside the DPWH budget:

Allocables: Pre-determined ceilings for congressional districts, fixed before Congress even deliberates. Nearly P1.2 trillion flowed through this channel from 2023–2025.
The mechanism? The secretive “BBM Parametric Formula”—allegedly “Baselined, Balanced, and Managed,” but sharing the President’s initials. Invented under former Secretary Manuel Bonoan and fully understood by only one official (former Undersecretary Maria Catalina Cabral), this black-box algorithm delivered the fattest shares to family:
- Sandro Marcos (President’s son): P15.8 billion for Ilocos Norte
- Martin Romualdez (President’s cousin, House Speaker): P14.4 billion
Small populations, massive windfalls—while denser, poorer districts scraped crumbs.

Dizon himself admits he had “zero part” in crafting the 2026 budget and doesn’t understand the formula. He promises to scrap it—by 2027. Convenient detachment for the secretary now tasked with the cleanup.

Non-allocables, ostensibly for national masterplans, become a free-for-all for lawmakers’ pet projects—ripe for ghosts and overpricing. The PCIJ calls it worse than the old pork: funding first, projects invented later.

The Budgetary Shell Game

Where did the “saved” P300+ billion vanish?

Officially: P20.7 billion from updated Construction Materials Price Data (CMPD) realigned to PhilHealth and disaster funds.
Broader maneuvers: Accusations of slashing government workers’ benefits to create slush funds for local governments (though senators denied hiding P17.9 billion in pork, claiming it boosted uniformed personnel allowances).

The shift from “hard” infrastructure (traceable, even when corrupt) to “soft” cash aid reeks of midterm election patronage.

The Unforgivable Human Cost

Beyond the numbers:

Stalled flood control in flood-prone slums—families losing homes while ledger ghosts feast.
Corruption robbing civil servants of benefits.
A government preaching reform while perfecting deception.

In vulnerable communities, the next typhoon won’t “make do.” It will kill.

Enough Theater. Time for Accountability.

This is not fiscal prudence. This is prosecution deferred.

We demand:

Immediate dismantling of the allocable system—not in 2027.
Genuine, prosecutorial investigations reaching the top beneficiaries: family districts, formula inventors, and all who profited.
Public outrage as the ultimate parametric formula—relentless, transparent, unforgiving.

The Filipino people have endured enough stage plays.

It’s time for real accountability—or revolution at the ballot box.