SENATE President Pro Tempore Panfilo Lacson on Friday pledged to step up his campaign against corruption in 2026, saying public outrage over the misuse of taxpayers’ money has reached a level that national leaders can no longer ignore. Invoking the symbolism of the upcoming Year of the Fire Horse, Lacson said he intends to “turn up the heat” on corruption, and hopes President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. will do the same during his remaining years in office. “The Filipino people expect no less from their public servants,” Lacson said. “They are more awake and angrier now after learning how their hard-earned tax money was plundered.” Lacson returned to the Senate last year, three years after leaving the chamber in 2022. He is now Senate President Pro Tempore, one of the chamber’s highest posts. Lacson said he has reassembled his former Senate team and expanded it with additional staff, a development he said has strengthened his resolve to pursue oversight work. “With renewed tenacity and hard work, I am even more encouraged to expose more corruption issues similar to what has become the most blatant and unprecedented misuse and abuse of the national budget since I left the Senate three years ago,” he said. Since his return, Lacson has played a prominent role in exposing alleged plunder involving substandard and so-called ghost flood control projects. He delivered two privileged speeches on the Senate floor, detailing the alleged anomalies and presiding over hearings of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, which is the panel tasked with investigating graft and corruption in government. He said that heightened public awareness would likely lead to more scrutiny of government spending in the coming year. “With a more awakened and angrier citizenry who have never been exposed before to such detailed acts of corruption and plunder, our national leaders have to brace themselves to address more corruption issues in 2026,” Lacson said. Lacson also called on President Marcos to sustain what he described as early momentum in the administration’s anti-corruption stance, citing the president’s widely quoted “Mahiya naman kayo” (Have some shame) remark during his State of the Nation Address. “I hope the President will not waver in his remaining years in office,” Lacson said. “I thought the momentum was already on his side after that statement. Unfortunately, public perception has not been kind, as reflected in recent surveys.” A member of the House Bicameral Conference Committee that deliberated the 2026 General Appropriations Act said the ratified P6.7-trillion budget has “stronger safeguards” to reduce the risk of ghost government projects and politicization. The House and Senate ratified the 2026 budget last Dec. 29. In a recent television interview, Negros Occidental 3rd District Rep. Javier Miguel Benitez said the role of Congress is to come up with a budget that is difficult to abuse by putting clear conditions, accountability mechanisms and transparency requirements into law, while leaving implementation to the Executive. “But when we talk about safeguards... This is a ghost project killer of a provision because while we had the DPWH (Department of Public Works and Highways) budget and other budgets also for infrastructure, there is now geotagging in the specific coordinates to ensure that every peso will build a real road, real bridge, real system so that we can ensure that it will go to a proper project,” Benitez said. He also noted that the ratification of the budget was crucial to avoid a reenacted budget which could delay government programs and negatively affect economic growth. “We are here to prioritize the budget and to give our safeguards and provisions, but it is also in the implementation that we as a people should be vigilant on the projects and implementation,” Benitez said. The neophyte lawmaker noted that the process marked a milestone for legislative transparency due to the livestreaming of bicam deliberations for the first time.