No anti-impeachment pork barrel — Palace

There’s a beeline at the Palace but no pork barrel bribes, Malacañang officials said yesterday.

"This is not related to the impeachment proceedings. It has nothing to do with that. It’s really part of the budget cycle," Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno said yesterday, referring to the stream of congressmen at the Palace in recent days.

Opposition congressmen accused President Estrada the other day of "bribing" congressmen with fund releases to influence them to junk the impeachment complaint against him.

Diokno said this is the period congressmen and senators troop to the Palace because the last quarter of the year coincides with "the peak of budget releases."

For his part, Executive Secretary Ronaldo Zamora said the presence of legislators at the Palace was not odd since they do meet with the President on matters pertaining to their constituents. He said it was merely coincidental if any of the congressmen visiting the Palace for meetings happens to be a member of the House committee on justice, in whose hands the impeachment proceedings against Mr. Estrada now lie.

House Majority Leader Eduardo Gullas also denied yesterday that the Palace will soon be releasing funds for the pet projects of congressmen supportive of the President.

Gullas said that if funds will indeed be released soon, the timing of the disbursements with the impeachment move is just "a mere coincidence."

"It is really at this time of the year that funds are released for the congressional districts nationwide. There’s nothing sinister here as some quarters would like to insinuate," he said.

Former senator and now Bohol Rep. Ernesto Herrera told a news conference the other day that Mr. Estrada has been meeting with members of his ruling Lapian ng Masang Pilipino (LAMP) at Malacañang and releasing funds for the lawmakers’ projects.

But Gullas said that the House leadership is committed "to follow and strictly observe the rules of procedure in impeachment proceedings and the Constitution."

"The House under the leadership of Speaker Manuel Villar would like to assure the general public that the proceedings will be undertaken in an orderly fashion and in accordance with laws and procedures," he stressed.

"We live in a civilized society and therefore we should let the rule of law prevail and never allow mob rule to reign," he added.

Herrera claimed the meetings at Malacañang and the fund releases were obviously intended to sway LAMP members and other congressmen supporting the administration into blocking the impeachment petition filed by the opposition and various people’s organizations.

"This is an act of bribery which the entire House must condemn because it undermines the independence of Congress and the integrity of the impeachment process," he said. – Marichu Villanueva