Every year, the elites representing 1 percent of the global population meet to maintain the current system that benefits only them. The 2026 World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, parades its theme ‘A Spirit of Dialogue’ amid ongoing imperialist wars, exacerbating negative impacts of the climate crisis, rampant corruption, inequality, and extreme poverty.

Year by year, the global situation gets worse — the rich become richer while the poor become poorer. The year 2025 was one of the warmest years on record, according to recent reports. The Global South, including the Philippines, remains vulnerable to the impacts.

The Philippines is the 10th-most-affected country by extreme weather events, according to Germanwatch’s 2025 Climate Risk Index report. Despite this, the government falls short in addressing the crisis, as thousands of Filipinos die, and billions of pesos are lost during typhoons. This became clearer when the main headlines in 2025 was the flood-control scam that exposed the massive corruption involving public funds.

This year, the 2026 National Budget is no different, as critics assessed it as “pork-laden” and not people-centered. The total budget for Climate and Disaster Resilience, Energy, and Environment for 2026 is about 65% lower than in 2025. From ₱309 billion in the previous year, the approved budget is now down to just ₱108 billion. This budget cut gives no justice to the peoples’ call for the government to intensify its efforts in adaptation and mitigation, forest preservation, renewable energy promotion, and accelerating disaster resilience.

The government is not learning its lesson, but the people continue to watch and criticize. Climate-related expenditure allocates ₱983.8 billion in the 2026 budget. This is a budget classification tool for agencies to self-report on programs and projects related to mitigation and adaptation under the Climate Change Expenditure Tagging (CCET) mechanism of the Department of Budget and Management and the Climate Change Commission.

In 2025, the CCET reached a record high of ₱1.156 trillion. The discussion paper of the Congressional Policy and Budget Research Department of the House of Representatives showed that the Department of Public Works and Highways recorded the largest climate change expenditure, totalling ₱1.1 trillion from 2019 to 2023, among others.

It is plain to see now how the government robs the peoples’ funds through these dirty schemes. CCET lacks transparency as its detailed program and project-level data are not publicly available. It only shows how much money is tagged for climate, but it does not provide details on the outcomes achieved.

The people, especially from the basic sectors, continue to suffer. There was a sharp rise in the agriculture budget in 2023 as the current administration pushed for modernization, infrastructure, and food security programs. But the bigger budget does not automatically mean better livelihoods for farmers and fishers. Our local peasants continue to face landlessness, low farmgate prices, and persistent smuggling.

This week, Marcos, Jr. expressed the need of the Philippines for cheaper, accessible funds, and dubbed it as positive reforms in climate financing. The president poises the country for another year of intensive climate debt, whose supposed benefits can’t be felt by the people and often only goes to corrupt politicians’ pockets.

On the global and national scales, one percent continue to support the current corrupt system that burdens the people and feeds their positions of power through dynasties, launching and supporting wars against poor nations, and widening the gap of inequality. As the heads of nations meet for their annual gathering to maintain their corrupt ways and maintain the status quo, we, the peoples of the Global South and other developing countries, raise our voices to fight inequality. We are taking back our power. ###

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1seCVKtkniE-b-E4H9RLvacbbStQBYYpp/