Media and news purveyor NET25 has closely monitored a week in which the national budget was taken apart line by line, by the Supreme Court, the Senate and the Office of the Ombudsman, with one of the network’s own columnists asking the question every taxpayer asks – where does our money go?
For the ordinary Filipino wage earner, the budget is the tax taken out of the payslip coming back as a road, a classroom or a flood control structure.
The story began at the Supreme Court. On October 20, the high court ruled against Congress’s Php 449.5 billion increase in the unprogrammed appropriations of the 2024 budget, a standby fund that grew from a proposed Php 281.9 billion to about Php 731.4 billion, and voided provisions on unprogrammed appropriations in the 2026 budget as well.
On Ano Sa Palagay N’yo?, Rep. Toby Tiangco said the ruling could strengthen the Ombudsman’s case against Martin Romualdez and Zaldy Co. The portal carried the other side as well, with Vice President Sara Duterte saying that the President should answer for a budget that departed from the National Expenditure Program.
Columnist Rikki Mathay put the ruling in the taxpayer’s terms in “YOUR ₱500 NEEDS A RECEIPT. THEIR BILLIONS?”, posted last October 22. The column asked why the Filipino must account for a Php 500 expense down to the receipt while billions in public funds are allocated with far less transparency and accountability.
Mathay’s column was careful with the figure as well, noting that the Php 449.5 billion was an increase in standby spending authority and not a finding that the amount had been spent or stolen, and that honest answers cannot be demanded with careless accusations.
By October 26, the Senate had also acted on the budget issue. Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian said the chamber would strip lump-sum funds, the items without specific detail, from the Php 7.2 trillion budget for 2027 and keep unprogrammed appropriations within the conditions the Supreme Court had set.
The same day, the Senate and Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab questioned Php 455 billion in DPWH projects that lacked detail, the folding of the Php 15 billion Special Road Fund into other items, and allocations that appeared uneven across districts, with senators warning that projects without complete documents invite corruption.
Also on October 26, President Marcos moved DPWH Secretary Vince Dizon to the Department of Transportation and named Transportation Secretary Giovanni “Banoy” Lopez to the DPWH in his place.
The week closed where the money had already gone. The Ombudsman filed 36 criminal cases against six former DPWH Region 12 officials and seven private individuals over Php 491.9 million in right-of-way payments for 18 lots along the Digos-Makar National Road in General Santos City, paid out on fake documents.
Read together, the week’s stories follow a single thread: the Supreme Court set the rule, the Senate rewrote the 2027 bill to meet it, Malacañang changed the hand on the DPWH purse, and the Ombudsman went after a case where the money was already lost.
NET25 makes a conscious effort to report the budget not as a contest of personalities but as the taxpayer’s receipt, pairing each day’s news with a columnist who asks where the money went. This gives the network’s budget coverage its “fiscalizer” voice, in the newsroom and on the opinion page alike.
As always, these stories are free to read anytime, anywhere on the NET25.com portal and are carried on Mata ng Agila and Ano Sa Palagay N’yo? as well.
NET25’s commitment to the Filipino taxpayer continues through news that follows the public purse from the courtroom to the Senate floor and the regional office. The “alternative mainstream” media giant keeps watch over the people’s money so that the Filipino household can see where its money goes.
