Ferdinand Marcos Jr is undeniably the mastermind and the greediest who must be held accountable for rampant government corruption. Over the past nearly three months, a continuous string of scandals has revealed cases of corruption directly involving him, his family, and his closest officials. The ICI, the commission he set up to pacify public outrage over corruption and clear his name, is now on the brink of collapse.

With help from his officials in the departments and his allies in congress and the senate, he restored the pork barrel fund system under the label “allocable.” He secured billions in his own pork barrel in the form of confidential and intelligence funds, as well as funds for unprogrammed appropriations (UA). He now faces anomalies that could serve as grounds for impeachment.

Use of UA for flood control

This December, former Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio revealed proof linking the PhilHealth funds transfer and the anomalous flood control projects. In 2024, Marcos’ UA appropriated the ₱60 billion in PhilHealth funds that had been “returned” to the government. Earnings of ₱170 billion from the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation (PDIC) was also transferred to the UA. Marcos used this UA to finance failed and ghost flood control projects (₱170 billion) and other projects such as the Davao Bypass Road Project.

Carpio said former finance secretary and now Marcos’ executive secretary Ralph Recto’s fund transfer to the UA violated the constitution.

The Supreme Court recently ruled the transfer illegal and ordered the funds be returned to PhilHealth.

Kickbacks, smuggling, and price manipulation

Since November 14, Elizalde Co, former Ako Bicol Partylist representative and Congress budget committee head, released seven videos that exposed the Marcos family’s corruption. Co’s first three videos revealed that Marcos instructed him to insert projects worth ₱100 billion into the 2025 budget. Marcos allegedly received ₱25 billion in kickbacks from this. Co said he delivered more than ₱50 billion in similar kickbacks to former house speaker Rep. Martin Romualdez and Marcos since 2022.

A separate video revealed that the president’s son, Rep. Sandro Marcos, ordered him to insert ₱50.9 billion into the budgets from 2023 to 2025 for his own kickbacks. Another video implicated Marcos’ wife, Liza Araneta-Marcos, in rampant smuggling of rice, fish, and vegetables. Co said that Araneta-Marcos blocked a congressional investigation into rice and onion smuggling to cover up her brother Martin Araneta’s role as mastermind in smuggling and price manipulation of rice and vegetables since 2022.

“Allocable” as the new pork barrel

Since 2022, in collusion with congressmen and senators, the Marcos regime has inserted the pork barrel into the budget under what it calls “allocable.” Simply put, the allocable is a fixed amount alloted to each district representative. It is included in the president’s National Expenditure Program under the budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH). A congressman can receive his “allocable” by submitting infrastructure proposals that the president will then approve.

An investigation by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) found that Rep. Marcos received the largest allocable (₱15.79 billion) from 2023 to 2025. His uncle, Rep. Romualdez, followed with ₱14.43 billion. A total of ₱1.2 trillion in allocable was divided among 254 congressmen across 14 regions over the past three years.

The 2026 budget still includes allocable funds. Congress has allotted ₱400 billion for itself. Congressmen repackaged their proposed flood control projects into farm-to-market roads, irrigation systems, classrooms, health facilities, housing, and airport buildings to preserve their funds in the budget. Another ₱100 billion non-allocable fund is labeled as a “free-for-all” pork barrel.