Bayan castigates Marcos Jr for being the biggest spender of pork barrel

Bagong Alyansang Makabayan led a protest in front of the House of Representatives to condemn the massive pork barrel allocation for the office of the president.

In the past two years, lump sum discretionary funds under the office of the president have ballooned which include the special purpose funds and unprogrammed allocations. Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr also spent 4.56 billion pesos using confidential and intelligence funds during the same period.

After the anomalous CIF spending of Vice President Sara Duterte was exposed, we believe that Marcos Jr is also guilty of recklessly using people’s money on dubious expenses. Congress should seek an independent audit of these funds.

Marcos allies and supporters have decried the CIF spending of Duterte but they ignore the bigger and more questionable CIF allocation of the office of the president.

Pork barrel funds are supposed to be prohibited but legislators in collusion with Malacañang have maliciously inserted allocations in various agencies whose spending and distribution enable patronage and corruption.

Bayan calls for the complete abolition of the pork barrel system and the realignment of these funds to food subsidies and social services. We should start with the CIF and special purpose funds of Marcos Jr which represent the biggest pork barrel items in the proposed 2025 budget.

Bayan joins the people in expressing outrage over the arbitrary use of taxpayers’ money by greedy politicians led by Marcos Jr who seeks to consolidate power ahead of the 2025 election. It is infuriating that politicians continue to plunder the nation’s wealth at a time when there is rising hunger and poverty in the country.

We call for more protests to end the pork barrel system and the dismantling of bureaucrat capitalism which has allowed notorious dynasties to dominate the country’s politics.