Villar, Aquino join presidential forum

MANILA, Philippines - Senators Manuel Villar Jr. and Benigno Aquino III joined a televised forum for the first time yesterday where they discussed their plans with local executives along with other presidential hopefuls, Sen. Francis Escudero and Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr.

The four laid bare their ideas on pork barrel, the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA), Charter change, peace in Mindanao and other issues concerning local autonomy.

Villar, who was first to declare his intention to run for president under the Nacionalista Party, said he had not been avoiding debates but would now participate in them since the number of presidential wannabes has trimmed down.

“Before it was 18 (people declaring their intention to run). Now it’s clearer who I have to face,” Villar said.

Villar has been topping various polls until Aquino entered the race. One of the criticisms against him was that he was not participating in debates.

Aquino declared his bid for the presidency in September after Liberal Party president and Sen. Manuel Roxas II gave way to make him as party standard-bearer.

Teodoro has been nominated as the administration’s Lakas-Kampi-NUCD candidate for president while Escudero, who is said to be the most likely standard-bearer of the Nationalist People’s Coalition, would make an announcement regarding his plans for 2010 after turning 40 on Oct. 10.

During the ANC forum dubbed “Face to Face: 100 Local Government Champions versus Four Presidential Contenders,” the four aspirants assured the local government officials of support in furthering their autonomy but with greater accountability as well.

Teodoro, Villar and Aquino said they could see nothing wrong in local government units benefiting from pork barrel or the Priority Development Assistance Funds (PDAF) as long as they would be spent accordingly.

Escudero, for his part, said he was in favor of abolishing pork barrel funds to avoid corruption in the grant of lump sum allocations.

He and Aquino agreed that the problem with pork barrel system was that only those allied with the administration were getting allocations easily and that the funds were being used for political purposes.

Teodoro said the use of pork barrel could be guided for major concerns like disaster risk management and agriculture.

“I think the concern is pork barrel funds never follow our short medium and long term plans,” he said.

Villar argued that these funds could be tools for development and he was even thanked by some local executives for giving them his pork barrel.

“Pork barrel was not utilized to ensure the loyalty of members of Congress. Now the power of the purse has been relegated to the President which is against the Constitution,” he said.

Villar said the funds could be used for education purposes for the first year to wipe out classroom backlogs, adding that these could be used as strategy for national development.