No funds to pay 4,000 cops, lawmakers told

Congressmen found out yesterday that the 4,000 new policemen, for whom they had appropriated P300 million in this year’s budget, cannot be recruited due to lack of funds.

Philippine National Police officials told the House appropriations committee chaired by Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr. (Lakas, Camarines Sur) that not a single centavo of the money allotted for the hiring of 4,000 additional policemen this year has been released to them.

They said they have started screening the recruits but cannot hire them because the money for such purpose is not available.

They said Malacañang has told them that the funds cannot be released due to the soaring budget deficit.

Andaya, whose panel opened hearings on the proposed P804-billion 2003 budget on Thursday, said he could understand the government’s financial predicament.

"The administration has really been sacrificing a lot of services and programs because of the deficit. Had it released the money for these items, it would have further widened the fiscal gap," he said.

He noted that finance and budget officials have already revised this year’s budget deficit target from the original P130 billion to P185 billion.

Opposition Rep. Celso Lobregat (LDP, Zamboanga City), who raised the question about the hiring of additional policemen, did not buy the deficit story.

He said it could be "a case of wrong spending priorities."

"We don’t have P300 million for new police recruits who will patrol our streets and make our people feel safer, but we have P600 million in overprice for a road project," he said.

He was referring to the President Diosdado Macapagal Blvd. in the Manila Bay reclamation area, a road project undertaken by the Public Estates Authority (PEA).

Sulficio Tagud, a member of the PEA board of directors, has claimed the road was overpriced by as much as P600 million.

Lobregat told his colleagues that the decision of Congress contained in the 2002 national budget to hire more policemen has been rendered useless by Malacañang, which has not released the necessary funds.

He said there is no use including such item again in the proposed 2003 outlay.