Miriam bares P11.5-B road work insertions

MANILA, Philippines – Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, vice chairman of the Senate finance committee, said the 2008 budget was bloated by P11.5 billion for public works projects, and raised concern the money could be used by lawmakers who intend to run in the 2010 presidential elections.

Santiago surmised that the projects were included through so-called congressional insertions.

“The life of an appropriation is two years. In 2009, President Arroyo may release these P11.5-billion insertions. By 2010, each project may continue to be implemented. Hence, I strongly suspect that most of these secret projects are going to be used by incumbent legislators for the 2010 elections,” Santiago said.

She also said that among the congressional insertions, large lump-sum appropriations account for P7.9 billion.

“The question is who will determine which project will be funded out of the two lump-sum funds. They should be subjected to the usual social benefit cost analysis. This could be a standing invitation to corruption,” she said.

The senator, in a privilege speech last week, lambasted the lack of transparency in the budget process following the exposé of opposition Sen. Panfilo Lacson over the alleged double appropriation for the C5-Road Extension project.

Santiago said she learned of the P11.5-billion insertions after getting a document for the statement of difference      between the proposed budget submitted by the President and that of the amendments or insertions made by legislators in the 2008 budget.

She said she has yet to identify who are the respective lawmakers who pushed for the multi-billion road projects under the Department of Public Works and Highways, noting that the P11.5-billion insertions comprise 12 percent of the total budget of the agency.

“The amount is unusually large... why so big? These projects have very low economic return,” she said.

“This is a cloak and dagger affair. I got this statement of difference by sheer persistence in the dead of night. Everyone fears for his life with the revelation of this fact. As bad as it is, the pork barrel is not as bad as congressional insertions because the congressional insertions are secret. They are discriminate, that is to say they are given only to selected senators and congressmen,” she added.

Santiago said she had never applied for a congressional insertion because she is not convinced that it is constitutional.

Coming from both houses

“Since I do not know the authors of the insertions, I cannot tell how much of the insertions came from which chamber. These are the joint insertions of both the Senate and the House. So in effect, the two chambers are equally guilty,” Santiago added.

She slammed certain projects allegedly initiated by individual legislators, although they have “low economic return.”       

“The most glaring low-priority project is the construction of so-called multipurpose buildings, which reached a total of P131.1 million,” she said.

Santiago also hit individual legislators who initiated certain projects that she said “should be better done by local governments or government-owned corporations, like the Local Water Utilities Administration.”

Among the “rich potentials for kickbacks” that she cited are the public markets in Tabaco City; San Vicente, Ilocos Sur; Arayat, Pampanga; and Mahayag, Zamboanga del Sur.

“There is even a lump-sum appropriation of P165 million for ‘Other Buildings’. These are projects that have not even been identified yet. Since it is a lump sum, it is most likely subject to abuse,” she said.

Santiago said that certain projects which are best done through the LWUA, but which are included in the 2008 budget, are the water systems in Pangasinan, fifth district; Bataan, second district; Muñoz, Nueva Ecija; Negros Oriental, first and third districts; Dumingag, Zamboanga del Sur; and South Cotabato, second district.

Unconstitutional

Santiago said the practice of amending the budget by means of secret, closed door sessions of the bicameral conference committee is unconstitutional.

She cited the 1994 case of Tolentino v. Secretary of Finance, where the Supreme Court was badly divided on the issue of budgetary insertions.

If a case on the constitutionality of secret budget insertions would be brought to bear today, Santiago predicted Chief Justice Reynato Puno would rule such inserts unconstitutional.

“In his dissent, the Chief Justice said that there is no constitutional provision, law, rule, or regulation that allows congressional insertions. I respectfully concur with this statement,” Santiago said.

She, however, noted that the majority vote does not constitute binding precedent, because the ratio decidendi (or the reason for deciding the case) was not about congressional insertions but about the Value Added Tax (VAT).

Scrutinize entire 2008 budget

Meanwhile, Sen. Loren Legarda said the Senate committee on finance should not only center its probe on two items of P200 million for a single road project, but also on every aspect of the 2008 national budget submitted by Malacañang.

“This is not loose change which we can ignore, especially during hard times when millions of people are hobbled by abject poverty,” Legarda said.

“Every aspect of this budget must be scrutinized to see to it that our meager resources would go to where they are supposed to go,” she said.

Legarda said whoever caused the insertion of the additional P200 million for the C-5 Extension should come out and explain once and for all who benefited.

Legarda revealed that Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile has already told her that the committee is bound to conduct hearings on the strength of a resolution sponsored by eight senators.

Senate inquiry

Enrile, chairman of the Senate committee on finance, expressed a desire to summon Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya and Public Works Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. to its first hearing on the issue on Monday.

Enrile said it will be up to Villar if he wants to present his side.

“If he wants to explain his side, he is free to come. I think courtesy suggests that I will not require him to appear,” Enrile told reporters.

Lacson welcomed Enrile’s move.

“It’s about time so that the Senate President will have the opportunity to present his side since he does not want to confront the issue through privilege speech. The hearing on Monday will be his opportunity, assuming he will be there to face us,” Lacson said.

As this developed, administration Sen. Joker Arroyo lashed out at Lacson for “side-stepping” and muddling the C-5 Road controversy and diverting the issue to his (Arroyo’s) statements 10 years ago against Villar while he was still House speaker and Arroyo then Makati representative.

“It would be idiocy to bite the poisoned bait. We should zero in on what he started – double entry. Senator Lacson should not run away from that,” Arroyo said.

During his speech, Arroyo raised the issue of why Lacson remains a “solitary voice” in his position on double entry when various congressmen and local officials have appreciated Villar’s “advocacy” for the project.

“It’s easy to say ‘tainted with corruption’,” he added, noting that things had gotten personal and that Lacson had no proof of his allegations.

Opening old wounds

The other day, in a rebuttal speech, Lacson revived the old issues hurled by Arroyo against Villar in 1998 when the Makati congressmen questioned the propriety of the speaker, who was then accused of not divulging interests in his real estate firms.

It was Arroyo’s turn yesterday to respond to Lacson’s accusations before the plenary.

In his speech titled “From ‘Road to Nowhere’ to ‘Complaint to Nowhere’,” Arroyo lambasted Lacson for dragging and wasting the time of the Senate in what he described as “double entry” in the 2008 budget for C-5 or the President Carlos P. Garcia Avenue.

“(The issue) has uselessly occupied the time of the Senate for almost two weeks, disrupting even its schedule and upsetting time-bound practices of fair play,” Arroyo said.

Narrating events which transpired at the Senate since Lacson’s expose last Sept. 8, Arroyo noted that Lacson “nimbly moved from one subject to another, one after the other, and has deliberately cluttered the issues, from the original issue of double entry to corruption in the halls of Congress to Congressman Arroyo’s attacks against Mr. Villar.”

“He wants you to get lost trying to figure out what he really wants,” Arroyo said in his privilege speech. “Sen. Lacson has resorted to a prohibited maneuver.”

But Arroyo vowed that he or the Senate cannot be distracted from the core issue which Lacson himself raised – the double entry.

He stressed that he was more concerned about the accusations of corruption rather than the attacks against the Senate president, who happens to be his colleague in the Wednesday Group.