The moment lawmakers were exposed for slipping billions into their office budgets—after the national budget had already been approved—I felt that familiar wave of disgust rise again. This was not some clerical oversight but a deliberate act of abuse. And it confirms a truth many Filipinos whisper but rarely say aloud: corruption in this country has grown bolder, greedier, and shamelessly more inventive.
Whenever I see these reports, I cannot help thinking of how these insertions bypass the very hearings designed to keep spending honest. There is something brazen about politicians quietly tucking in funds that were never debated, never questioned, never justified. It is as if the whole process of budget scrutiny exists only for agencies they do not control, while their own offices operate like private vaults. The brazenness insults every taxpayer who follows the law because they have no choice, while those in power twist the system until it breaks under their weight.
What unsettles me further is how these insertions can slip into personal pockets without passing through liquidation or audit. I have often wondered how one sleeps knowing billions of pesos meant for public service have turned into personal spoils. There is no artistry here, no cleverness—just the crude courage of someone convinced that the law cannot reach him. And the tragedy is that, in many cases, the law indeed cannot, or worse, will not.
Meanwhile, small government agencies, especially state universities and colleges, must endure hearings that feel like ritual humiliation. I’ve seen schools struggle to defend requests for buildings, equipment, or even a modest increase in MOOE, only to be dismissed as though they were begging for luxuries. The double standard is infuriating. These institutions hold the hopes of young people, yet their pleas are measured in pesos while politicians help themselves to billions with a pen stroke. When I think of how SUCs must justify every line item while certain offices enjoy windfalls with no questions asked, the injustice becomes almost unbearable.
This is where the abuse feels most personal to me. Every time a politician siphons public money, the effect ripples down to ordinary communities—students in overcrowded classrooms, patients in understaffed hospitals, farmers waiting for farm-to-market roads that never get built. The nation is robbed not only of funds but of possibilities. Corruption steals futures long before those futures are even imagined. And as I watch this pattern repeat year after year, the feeling it leaves is not just frustration but a kind of national exhaustion.
The bigger fear is bankruptcy—not just financial, but moral. If this plunder goes on, the country will eventually collapse under the weight of its own rot. No economy can sustain a government that treats the treasury as a feeding trough. No society can thrive when leaders gorge on what the people painstakingly earn. I dread the day when the damage becomes irreversible, when even honest leaders will find themselves governing ruins built by decades of theft.
Yet even in this bleak landscape, I believe the situation is not beyond remedy. What this country desperately needs is not another slogan or vague promise but a clean, forceful overhaul of how public money is handled. Transparency must stop being a buzzword and become a habit; accountability must stop being ceremonial and become punitive. There must be consequences—real, painful consequences—for those who treat the national budget as a personal jackpot.
And so, I come to this quiet conclusion: the only way forward is to tighten the rules so tightly that even the boldest thief cannot wriggle through. Strengthen the watchdogs, empower citizens, and strip the process of dark corners where greed loves to hide. We need to break this cycle of misery and give the nation a chance to breathe again.
