By Rep. Antonio Tinio
ACT Teachers Partylist
The Senate version of the 2026 General Appropriations Bill contains massive cuts to benefits for rank-and-file government employees in order to fund a P17.9 billion increase in discretionary pork barrel funds for Local Government Units (LGUs).
The Senate has slashed the Miscellaneous Personnel Benefits Fund (MPBF) by a staggering P55 billion, reducing it to just P56.5 billion from the P111.5 billion proposed by Malacañang in the National Expenditure Program (NEP) and carried over unchanged in the House version. While a portion of this reduction represents a transfer of Subsistence Allowances to specific agencies, billions were genuinely cut from the Performance-Based Bonus (PBB), staffing modifications, and funds for filling unfilled positions.
Simultaneously, the Senate bloated the Allocations to Local Government Units (ALGU), specifically nearly doubling the Local Government Support Fund (LGSF) from P20.2 billion to P38.1 billion.
The Senate bloated the Local Government Support Fund (LGSF) by a net P17.9 billion, nearly doubling the House allocation to a total of P38.1 billion. This massive increase is driven by a P7.6 billion injection into the highly discretionary Financial Assistance to LGUs (Falgu), bringing its total to P16.7 billion, effectively creating a massive slush fund for local patronage under the guise of aid. Furthermore, the Senate hiked the Growth Equity Fund by P10.3 billion to reach P11.3 billion. Despite the Senate’s ‘anti-pork’ posturing, these additions retain broad menus for infrastructure and financial handouts that serve political interests rather than national development planning.
In the Senate’s “LGU pork,” ‘hard pork’ remains fully entrenched through the retention of local roads, bridges, and multi-purpose buildings on the menu, and the introduction of a new loophole for ‘Flagship Infrastructure Projects’ that allows for unlimited large-scale construction in partnership with national government agencies. Meanwhile, ‘soft pork’ was not only preserved but expanded; the Senate broadened the menu available to LGUs for direct handouts or ayuda to explicitly cover medical, funeral, transportation, food, and educational assistance, and merely rebranded ‘ambulances’ as ‘mobile medical vehicles.’ This ensures that local patrons retain full control over state resources to dole out charity in exchange for political loyalty.
The Senate slashed funding for the benefits of teachers, health workers, and government employees, only to funnel those cuts into a massive slush fund for local patronage. This is classic bureaucrat capitalism — robbing the workers to feed the political machinery of local dynasties.
It is ironic that while some Senators righteously denounce the patronage-based medical assistance fund bloated by the House, their own version of the budget enables LGU officials to do the same with medical assistance, ayuda, and the like. Dapat tanggalin lahat ng pork sa budget— whether dispensed by congressmen, senators, or local government officials.
The cuts to the MPBF will have devastating effects on the government workforce, particularly in the education and health sectors which are already suffering from chronic shortages.
By slashing P15.8 billion from Staffing Modifications and P2 billion from the fund for Filling Unfilled Positions, the Senate is effectively freezing the regularization of thousands of contractual workers. In our State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) alone, the majority of faculty are trapped in Job Order (JO) and Contract of Service (COS) schemes with no employer-employee relationship. This budget denies them the dignity of security of tenure.
The P13.5 billion cut to the Performance-Based Bonus (PBB) pool demoralizes a workforce already struggling with low pay and high inflation.
We demand the immediate restoration of the MPBF. We call on the Bicameral Conference Committee to junk the Senate’s LGU pork and restore these funds to where they belong and as originally proposed in the NEP: the salaries and benefits of our workers. We must fund the regularization of contractuals, fill vacant plantilla positions in our schools and hospitals, and finally grant the long-overdue increase in the Personnel Economic Relief Allowance.