The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) strongly condemns the signing by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. of the 2026 national budget, a budget that is riddled with pork barrel funds and bloated allocations for corruption, militarization, and anti-people programs, while neglecting the urgent needs of farmers and the Filipino people.

Despite claims by the Marcos administration that the 2026 budget is a people-centered budget, the approved General Appropriations Act is in fact saturated with various forms of pork – presidential pork, congressional and LGU pork, soft pork, and Generals’ pork amounting to hundreds of billions of pesos. Central to this is the P243-billion Unprogrammed Appropriations, which serves as a massive presidential slush fund with no clear safeguards and a long record of abuse. This enormous fund gives Marcos Jr. wide discretion to channel public money to himself, favored politicians, contractors, and political allies.

“This budget is a continuation of bureaucrat capitalism at its worst. While farmers are pushed deeper into debt and poverty, Marcos Jr. ensures that pork barrel funds remain intact to secure political loyalty and patronage,” said Danilo Ramos, Chairperson of KMP. “Hindi ito badyet para sa mamamayan. Ito ay badyet para sa pork, patronage, at political survival ng rehimeng Marcos na lubhang kinasusuklaman ng taumbayan.”

KMP also denounces the huge allocations for programs that directly fuel fascism in the countryside. The P8.08-billion Support to the Barangay Development Program under the NTF-ELCAC, also known as the generals’ pork, has been retained and expanded. This fund has repeatedly been used to militarize rural communities, coerce barangays into declaring themselves “cleared,” and reward local officials who cooperate with counterinsurgency operations, instead of addressing the roots of poverty and landlessness.

At the same time, confidential and intelligence funds have been further increased, reaching more than P11 billion, with a large portion concentrated in the Office of the President, the AFP, and the PNP. These opaque funds have long been used to bankroll surveillance, red-tagging, harassment, and violent operations against peasants, activists, and rural communities asserting their rights.

“The 2026 budget is a budget for fascism. It pours billions into confidential and intelligence funds and NTF-ELCAC projects that target farmers and rural communities, while offering only token assistance to agriculture,” said Ronnie Manalo, Secretary General of KMP. “Instead of investing in support to local agricultural production, free irrigation, and improvement of rural livelihoods, the regime chooses to bankroll militarization of peasant and rural communities.”

KMP stressed that so-called “assistance” programs for farmers, including the new Presidential Assistance to Farmers and Fisherfolk, are merely soft pork funds meant to pacify discontent. These do not address the real problems faced by farmers — landgrabbing and land-use conversion, high production costs, low farmgate prices, rampant importation, and the absence of genuine state support for agriculture.

“The Marcos regime worsens poverty through anti-people policies, then offers crumbs in the form of ayuda that can be dispensed at its discretion,” Ramos added.

KMP calls on farmers, workers, youth, and all sectors to reject and expose the 2026 national budget and to hold the Marcos administration accountable for advancing a corrupt, anti-people, and fascist spending plan. The peasant group reiterates its demand for a budget that prioritizes advancing genuine agrarian reform, national industrialization, adequate and affordable social services, and an end to pork barrel and militarist programs that only serve the interests of the ruling elite. ###