The People’s Budget Coalition is urging President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. to issue an executive order (EO) to tighten safeguards on so-called “soft pork” provisions in the proposed 2026 national budget, warning that weak rules could turn these funds into instruments of political patronage rather than development.
In a television interview, coalition co-convenor AJ Montesa said the President still has options despite concerns already raised by lawmakers.
“So we think the best recourse for him would be maybe to issue an executive order where he can transform some of these programs, especially yung soft pork, to be more rules-based and rights-based rather than patronage-driven,” Montesa said.
He noted that if safeguards in the General Appropriations Act (GAA) fall short, the President could impose stricter conditions through an EO.
“Or if not, what he can do is tag them as for later release or for a conditional implementation,” he said.
Concerns over “soft pork” have intensified following sharp increases in lump-sum allocations for local government units (LGUs) in the proposed budget, including a hike in the Local Government Support Fund to ₱57.8 billion from ₱16 billion, Financial Assistance to LGUs to ₱37.4 billion from ₱5 billion, and the Growth Equity Fund to ₱11.3 billion from ₱1 billion.
Montesa said an EO could directly address informal practices in fund releases.
“Kung hindi sapat yung safeguards na nandun sa general provisions ng GAA, the President can issue his own, directing talaga dun sa implementing agencies na tanggalin yung sistema because a lot of it is an informal system,” he said.
He warned that weak oversight allows funds to drift away from development priorities.
“The problem is there really is a lack of oversight. So instead of spending on programs that would forward development, it becomes a source of ayuda or financial assistance support,” Montesa said.
“It must localize to the LGUs or infrastructure projects that are not responsive. So it becomes a patronage system,” he added.
Montesa stressed that financial assistance programs are harder to track than infrastructure spending.
“Pag infrastructure, may geotagging ka na, may monitoring system ka na. Pero pag financial assistance, it’s hard to track where that goes, to whom that goes,” he said.
“And itong localized pork, dahil downloaded siya directly to the LGUs, it’s even much harder to exercise oversight on this,” he added.
He clarified that any EO would apply only to problematic items, not the entire budget.
“Hindi naman yung buong budget yung kailangan for conditional. Just the red flags that we’ve tagged on infrastructure, on soft pork,” Montesa said.
“And if you can veto the entire unprogrammed appropriations, that would be the best case scenario,” he added.