LINGAYEN-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas’ call on the Catholic community to do a critical evaluation of the approved 2025 national budget as recently signed by President Marcos Jr. is a bit too late in the day.

Quoting him: “As your Archbishop, I admonish you to study diligently, judge critically and act with vigilance on the moral concern of the 2025 national budget. It is a grave social matter,” and proceeded to quote Psalm 118:9: “It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.”

While his message may still be timely by citing the moral aspect of the exercise, the volume of published repudiation and posted criticism of the discreditable action taken by the president over the weeks on the budget, makes his call redundant unless he meant it to be a call to action. But it isn’t.

Father Soc’s message, unfortunately, fell short of condemning the whole budgeting exercise, from the committee hearings to the bicameral meeting and the attempt of PBBM to deodorize his vetoed items. The most obvious of which was making the national budget for education the highest as mandated by the constitution by inserting the budgets of the Philippine Military Academy and the PNP Academy, and voila – education had the highest budget.

It is even too late to expect a mass protest, especially not after the Iglesia Ni Cristo’s national rally for peace, rejected all notions of political protests against the Marcos government, whether it was about peace and order or the 2025 national budget, etc.

Besides, it is no longer debatable at this stage that PBBM’s decision to keep the items intended to line the pockets of his allies in Congress is morally unspeakable. He still made the DPWH budget the second biggest budget in 2025 – the biggest source of corruption by lawmakers Then, he retained the budget for Ayuda sa Kapos ang Kita Program (AKAP) to legitimize vote-buying for the candidates of the administration.

Hence, If only Father Soc had been more direct, asking the Catholic community to protest the blatant robbery of people’s funds with the warning of the Lord God’s wrath for violating His eighth commandment – Thou shalt not steal– a quiet call to action would have been possible.

But still, let Father Soc’s call be a warning to the Pangasinan’s congressmen in 2025.

Share your Comments or Reactions

comments

Powered by Facebook Comments