Feast of the Leeches: How Congress and Malacañang Turned Your Taxes into Their Personal Buffet

Leftovers for the Poor: PhilHealth’s Zero Subsidy While the Elite Lick Their Plates Clean

By Louis ‘Barok‘ C. Biraogo — January 2, 2026

MGA ka-kweba, mga kapwa biktima ng sistemang ito—welcome back to the cave. It’s your resident troglodyte, Barok, here to drag another carcass of institutional plunder into the light. Today’s exhibit: former Budget Secretary Florencio “Butch” Abad’s damning dissection of how much we’re paying for the Office of the President (OP), the Senate, and the House of Representatives to pretend they’re working (Philippine Daily Inquirer, 7 Dec. 2025). Spoiler: it’s obscene, it’s unconstitutional, and it’s happening while essential services get starved.

***“All-you-can-eat People’s Money—bring your own pancit, they already took the Canton.”***

The Grotesque Arithmetic: Billions for the Powerful, Crumbs for the People

Let’s begin with the numbers—no one hides hypocrisy better than cold arithmetic.

For 2025:

The OP devoured P1.3 billion per month (P15.6 billion annually).
Each of the 24 senators received P48.3 million per month.
Each of the 315 congressmen got P8.8 million per month.

These are not salaries (governed by the Salary Standardization Law)—these are operating budgets for staff, travel, “communication expenses,” and whatever creative line items they invent.

For 2026? The Senate version grants the OP P27.4 billion—a staggering P2.3 billion per month. The Senate itself rises to P8.6 billion (from P7.2 billion), and the House climbs to P27.7 billion.

And the source of this windfall? Cuts to vital services—like the zero subsidy for the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) in 2025. Zero. While politicians feast, public health starves.

The Hidden Machinery: Budgetary Legerdemain at Its Finest

How do they pull it off? Classic fiscal sleight-of-hand.

The House budget magically inflated by P10 billion in Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE)—from P10.7 billion in the National Expenditure Program (NEP) to P18.6 billion in the third version of the House General Appropriations Bill (HGAB). No subcommittee report mentioned it. It simply appeared.

Breakdown of the bloat:

Communication expenses: +P1.07 billion
“Other MOOE”: +P2.9 billion

Funds likely raided from:

Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH): slashed by P255 billion
Office of the Vice President (OVP): frozen at P733 million (same as 2025, despite political vendettas)

Add unprogrammed funds still lurking at P243 billion—a perennial license for discretionary spending.

The Legal and Ethical Farce: Constitutional Ghosts Refuse to Die

Time for the law, because nothing amuses more than lawmakers ignoring the very Constitution they swore to defend.

Article VI, Section 25 of the 1987 Constitution explicitly states: Congress may not increase appropriations beyond the President’s recommendation, except for its own budgets. Yet here we are—massive OP hikes and mysterious House insertions.

The Supreme Court already buried similar schemes:

Belgica v. Ochoa (G.R. No. 208566, 2013) declared the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) unconstitutional for post-enactment congressional meddling.
Araullo v. Aquino III (G.R. No. 209287, 2014) struck down parts of the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) for illegal fund transfers and premature “savings.”

These current lump-sum insertions and unprogrammed funds? They’re the resurrected corpses of PDAF and DAP—zombies in new clothing.

Ethics? Republic Act No. 6713 (Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees) demands public officials lead “modest lives” and handle funds with “utmost responsibility.” A P2.3 billion monthly OP budget is “modest”? P48.3 million per senator—some of whom nap through sessions—is “utmost responsibility”?

Under Republic Act No. 3019 (Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act), this reeks of graft: manifest partiality, bad faith, undue injury to the government.

Prosecution Theater: Where Justice Goes to Perform, Not Deliver

Options exist—on paper:

File graft complaints with the Office of the Ombudsman.
Petition the Supreme Court for prohibition and declare these insertions unconstitutional.

Belgica began the same way. But reality? The Ombudsman moves at glacial speed. Courts dodge “political questions.” Congress investigates itself. Theater, not justice.

Systemic Rot: An Ecosystem Built to Feed Itself

This isn’t just individual greed—it’s structural. A Congress that controls the purse and stuffs it, an Executive that acquiesces, unprogrammed and confidential funds as licensed theft, and a Commission on Audit (COA) that audits after the money vanishes.

While political offices balloon, health, infrastructure, and education get gutted. Elite capture, plain and simple.

A Call to Arms (Delivered with Exhaustion)

Demands—knowing full well they’ll be ignored:

Immediate, televised forensic audits by the COA of every peso in OP, Senate, and House budgets. Show the receipts.
Supreme Court: deliver Belgica 2.0—strike down lump-sum insertions and unprogrammed funds permanently.
Real reforms: abolish unprogrammed appropriations, restore line-item veto, cap political office budgets (e.g., 10x GDP per capita).

For taxpayers? Your “options”: