Ping reveals ‘pork’ deals among lawmakers

MANILA, Philippines - Confronted by images of his fellow legislators wheeling and dealing among themselves for share in the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) during budget deliberations, former senator Panfilo Lacson said he realized the controversial mechanism “was a ticking bomb ready to explode in our faces.”

“The question, when it would happen was the only thing I thought was uncertain. I had a practical reason for believing so,” he said recently in a speech before the Philippine Constitution Association.

“In this material world, satisfaction is a myth. It is greed that is real. It has now exploded,” Lacson said.

Each senator is allocated P200 million annually in PDAF while a congressman receives P70 million.

Lacson, who had never availed himself of his PDAF allocation, said he saw first hand how legislators would discuss among themselves ways to increase their respective allocations.

“Every year, just before the period of amendments of both chambers, small and big group caucuses decide how much each member would get as additional pork, usually at least P100 million more for senators,” he said.

“The second tranche of how much more should come just before the bicameral conference committee meetings, traditionally referred to as the third and most powerful chamber of Congress,” Lacson said.

It’s in bicameral conference meetings where representatives of the Senate and the House try to reconcile any conflicting provisions in their respective versions of the budget measure. Most of these meetings were held behind closed doors.

“The smarter ones manage to wrangle as early as during the committee hearings held to tackle the budgets of departments and agencies; likewise during plenary debates when questions are addressed by individual legislators to heads of the different agencies through the budget sponsors,” he added.

‘Co-conspirators’

Lacson said funds are parked in the budgets of the different government agencies “whose heads are willing co-conspirators in the schemes or scams.”

“The amounts realigned or inserted range from a few hundred millions to even over a billion pesos for the smart, diligent and well-connected legislators of both houses,” he said.

Lacson cited an instance in 2006 when the senators held a caucus on what to do with P38 billion in special purpose funds or lump sum items in the budget.

He recalled that there was an agreement to slash a substantial portion of the fund and realign it to the pork barrel allocation of the legislators or P300 million each.

Lacson said he objected to this during the caucus because the senators were already receiving P200 million in pork barrel funds each at the time.

Later in the same year, Lacson recalled he was approached by then Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano during a weekly gathering with other opposition politicians, businessmen, political analysts, and advertising people, who asked him to allocate P50 million of his additional P200 million PDAF to Taguig.

“Apparently, Cong. Alan got wind of the information from his ate (sister), Sen. Pia Cayetano,” he said. “From an initial P300 million in additional pork that did not materialize because of my objections, they were embarrassed by one-third so they just ended up with P200 million during a second caucus where I was not invited,” Lacson said.

He said he later confronted the finance committee chairman and the Senate president at the time and threatened to expose in the plenary the goings-on in budget discussions.

“A few more intervening events transpired afterwards, but to make the long story short, the P200 million additional pork for each of the 23 senators did not materialize,” he added.

Earlier, Senate committee on finance chairman Francis Escudero vowed to open the bicameral conference meetings to the public for the proposed P2.268-trillion national budget for 2014.

“This will be my first bicam, we will make it open. It’s a public hearing,” Escudero said.

He said there is no reason for representatives of the Senate and the House in the bicameral conference committee meetings to oppose his move since they all have nothing to hide.