Popularly called bottoms up budgeting, or BUB for short, it first made its mark during the administration of the late President Benigno Simeon ‘PNoy’ Aquino III. The Department of Budget and Management (DBM), headed then by ex-Batanes representative turned secretary Florencio ‘Butch’ Abad, came up with this catchy term. Launched in 2012 by the DBM, BUB was acknowledged as a key budget reform measure.
Described as ‘grassroots participatory budgeting,’ this involved local communities and citizens being given a say in identifying and prioritizing projects to be funded by the national budget. BUB encourages and promotes participation of local government units (LGUs) to help identify and recommend priority programs and projects for possible funding in the annual budget of the national government. The role of the LGUs in BUB is through their respective regional development councils (RDCs), which are composed of the provincial mayors in each region.
Some of the flood control projects earlier found defective and substandard were undertaken by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) without prior consultation with LGU executives. Cases in point were those of Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte, Oriental Mindoro Governor Humerlito Dolor and the various LGU executives in many of the flood-prone areas in Bulacan.
Mayor Belmonte discovered to her dismay several flood control projects were undertaken without prior consultation with the city government. The worse part of it, Mayor Belmonte found out from residents in these areas, is that they did not experience flooding in the past. But after the DPWH built these supposed flood mitigating structures, these areas in Quezon City get flooded at the slightest rainfall. On inspection of flood control projects in the province, Gov. Dolor found defective, if not sub-standard cement, iron bars and other materials were used.
All this time, the BUB system was supposedly followed by the DBM in the preparation of the yearly budget, or the General Appropriations Act (GAA) bill submitted to Congress. Called ‘the President’s budget,’ it contains the priorities identified in the National Expenditure Program (NEP). Thus, the proposed budget bill each year is a ‘must’ in the priority measures presented by the President for inclusion in the common legislative agenda with Congress.
But to Abad’s immediate predecessor, erstwhile DBM secretary Benjamin Diokno, BUB was nothing but a buzzword. For Diokno, now senior Monetary Board member, the BUB concept only narrowed down perspective of the bigger picture for the entire country’s economy. Having helped craft 13 out of the 39 budget laws while he was in and out of the DBM in his public service career, Diokno spoke from experience and authority.
Much worse, the DBM itself got ousted from attending and was not even allowed to participate in the deliberations of the bicameral conference committee, or bicam for short. Otherwise known as the ‘third congress,’ the bicam is composed supposedly of equal numbers of senators and House members. They are supposed to reconcile and consolidate the amendments each chamber made to the original DBM version of the GAA/NEP.
The bicam holds its meeting behind closed doors, away from the prying eyes of the press, to conduct the horse-trading and wheeling-and-dealing among lawmakers.
So much more powerful than the bicam, Navotas Rep. Toby Tiangco earlier revealed, is a ‘small committee’ that actually makes the ultimate pass upon the GAA/NEP. Composed of the Senate president, the Speaker, the Senate finance committee chairperson and the House appropriations committee chief, Tiangco pointed to this ‘small committee’ as the one that gives the go-signal for the approval of the GAA/NEP in plenary sessions of the Senate and at the House.
This came out during the series of Senate and congressional hearings that followed after the State of the Nation Address (SONA) of President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr. (PBBM). It was at this SONA at the 20th Congress last July 28 when PBBM lashed out at how the 2025 GAA was mangled beyond recognition. PBBM particularly ranted against the ‘initiatives, insertions, errata, SOP’ that went into this year’s budget. Approved by the defunct 19th Congress, many of these lawmakers got re-elected to the present 20th Congress.
In the on-going Senate Blue Ribbon committee hearing on the reported ‘ghost’ flood control projects, its current but now resigned chairman, comebacking Senator Panfilo ‘Ping’ Lacson, noted with concern there was no indication at all that RDCs were consulted. Now Senate President Pro Tempore, Lacson vowed to resume his advocacy for BUB and other budget reforms which he did in Congresses past.
As a profound learning from the discovered anomalies that went into the 2025 GAA, the Senate vows to scrap unprogrammed appropriations starting with the 2026 budget. While it’s too early to tell if the Senate can do this, it can stir up national debate on how to defund sources of corruption in the Congress-approved budget laws. The annual budget process has become fertile ground for the maleficent initiatives and indiscriminate insertions.
Under the guise of amendments to the proposed GAA bill, the congressional hocus-pocus will, however, become more difficult from hereon. The sticky hands among lawmakers will now have to contend with Lacson and like-minded senators.
A few days or several weeks after the SONA each year, the President usually convenes the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC). Both the executive branch represented by the President and Cabinet officials and the leaders of Congress agree on their common administration and legislative priority bills.
It was only last Sept. 30, or more than two months after the SONA, that PBBM finally convened the LEDAC at Malacañang Palace. It was attended by the new set of leaders in both chambers of the 20th Congress. Senate President Vicente ‘Tito’ Sotto III and Speaker Faustino ‘Bojie’ Dy III of Isabela met with PBBM.
The Congress leadership changes came in the aftermath of the 2025 GAA brouhaha.
Fortuitously perhaps, the LEDAC meeting got delayed. Or, has PBBM shifted to dark mode in these last three years of his term? His worst enemies can only speculate what he is up to, or how soon he will strike back.