Zero-Sum Game
Power Plays Behind the 2025 National Budget
by Gerra Mae Reyes
The concept of winners and losers in the national budget is far from new. Some sectors benefit while others bear a thousand cuts due to limited fiscal resources, with the government holding the sole decision-making power. Unfortunately, dominant players in the political arena are not reflective of Filipino people’s interests, often putting the welfare of the majority at a disadvantage.
On December 30, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. inked the P6.33 trillion national budget for 2025, marking a 9.7% increase from the P5.79 trillion budget of the previous year. This move may seem strategic for the government’s agenda of prosperity, but egoism bleeding through its pages reveals a hideous political masterplan.
The General Appropriations Bill was originally set to be signed on December 20. However, this was pushed back following the public clamor over questionable changes after the bicameral conference committee’s deliberations — the masters in this zero-sum game.
In reviewing the track, the 2025 National Expenditure Program submitted to Congress on July 29, was already deeply flawed. Of the proposed P6.35 trillion budget, no significant portion was allocated to addressing the urgent socio-economic development needs of the Filipino people. Instead, it merely reinforces patronage politics, heavily prioritizing government projects that are not in the interest of genuine national development. This was made worse by the bicameral.
On the losing end, the delivery of social services suffered a death by a thousand cuts. First in line is the health sector as the bicameral defunded the health department by P25.80 billion and gave PhilHealth zero subsidy, which will incapacitate the insurance company in expanding their packages atop the expected 18% rise in health care costs this year. Catastrophic healthcare expenses drive many Filipinos further into poverty, with the social determinants of health remaining unaddressed in the country.
In addition, the Philippine General Hospital will continue to suffer from chronic issues of understaffing, dilapidated facilities, and long lines in its outpatient department as the University of the Philippines faces a P2.08 billion budget cut — the largest in at least 20 years. All this while the PGH grapples with the drastic effects of consecutive fires that hit the hospital in the last quarter of 2024. To note, the PGH caters to 600,000 patients annually — most of whom are from marginalized sectors — relying on its inexpensive medical services.
Though mandated by the constitution to have the highest budget allocation, the education sector will suffer from the government’s misallocation of funding in the 2025 budget. The computerization program of the Department of Education will also be put on hold after the bicameral slashed P12 billion, with P10 billion originally allocated to provide public schools with information and communication technologies. Analysts say this could be a fireback from the confidential funds of the former education secretary and Vice President Sara Duterte, who is currently facing impeachment. Yet, the education sector is still left suffering from a lack of textbooks, inadequate classrooms, and low teacher compensation — issues that could be addressed if the budget had been properly allocated in the first place.
Amid the dying agriculture, the bicameral blatantly made the sector down for the count by cutting P20 billion from the Department of Agriculture and P23.2 billion from the National Irrigation Administration. This will worsen rural poverty and food insecurity in the country, recording 51 million Filipinos who are moderately and severely food insecure. All while prices of basic commodities continue to rise, with food inflation particularly burdening the poorest Filipino families.
At the top of the leaderboard, the bicameral made the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) the biggest gainer for this year’s budget. The P825 billion budget allocation was raised to P1.14 trillion after Congress added P288.6 billion for the department. Most of the additional funding, amounting to P257 billion, would go to flood control. However, such a massive increase still gives no hope considering the department’s history of corruption and delayed big-ticket projects which have been stuck in their preparatory stages as early as 2018. This inefficiency has left the country vulnerable, as evidenced by the six consecutive tropical cyclones — three of which were super typhoons — that battered the country in the last quarter of 2024.
Sneaking this additional funding beyond the budget preparation process makes it highly susceptible to enabling more pork barrel schemes. Also, this only supports the trapo practice of concealing large bribes in large infrastructure projects. Only a minuscule amount of the DPWH’s trillion budget — not exceeding 5% in total — would be spent on infrastructures for social services such as school buildings, health centers, and housing facilities.
Summing this up with the billions cut for social services reveals the sleazy game plan of the government to deny the people access to quality education and healthcare while making them reliant on ayuda programs.
The Ayuda para sa Kapos ang Kita Program (AKAP), sneaked by house speaker and presidential cousin Martin Romualdez, was suspiciously approved despite not being included in the proposal. This comes amid the P50 billion budget cut to the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program made by the bicameral. Controversies have been surrounding the AKAP, revealing that funds are allegedly being used for vote-buying. Meanwhile, a tug-of-war unfolds in Congress as the opposition clamors against allies of the ruling party receiving larger “ayuda” funds.
The House of Representatives increased its own budget by P17.3 billion and the Senate by P1.1 billion. Congress also allocated an additional P5.4 billion to the Office of the President, apparently for hosting the ASEAN Summit in 2026. Given that such increases have no specifics in the sketchy report — and the weak oversight in the field — these funds could potentially be used as political currency to sustain patronage politics. There is also a high probability that social services will remain in the hands of powerful politicians, rather than being made available to the masses.
In the final appropriations, the education sector received the highest budget allocation of P1.06 trillion, surpassing the P1.01 trillion final budget of the DPWH. This was after the President vetoed P194 billion worth of line items before signing. Although the game seemed to shift back on track, the government’s mandate to give the “highest budgetary priority to education” remains questionable. The education budget stealthily includes funding for the police, military, and local government academies — all while ignoring pleas from the basic education sector for classroom funding and increasing teachers’ wages.
Still, this year’s budget remains a reflection of political agendas — and not of genuine development priorities. The power struggle in current Philippine politics reveals that budget allocation can become a high-stakes political game rather than a mere economic exercise. In this case, the real losers are the Filipino people as elite interests take priority over national development.
Given the lopsided prioritization, this year’s budget is nothing but the worst in history — so far. There are three more years left for the Marcos presidency to either realign its priorities or to continue to serve its self-interest. The upcoming 2025 mid-term elections could dictate its trajectory. However, as much as the revitalization in the line of legislators would help, the national budget will remain a shallow spending plan without genuine strategies for social and economic development in the first place.
The government must now adopt a long-term strategy, aligning fiscal plans with national development goals determined by the needs of the people. This can be achieved if legislators will not let their selfish interests win in the zero-sum game. Ultimately, transparency and accountability must be at its core, as the country can no longer afford more politicians who will only siphon taxpayers’ money behind closed doors.
