MANILA, Philippines - A former member of President Arroyo’s Cabinet urged her yesterday not to use up the entire P1.541-trillion national budget with her “panic-spending” during the election campaign.
In an email to reporters, former economic planning secretary Ralph Recto said Mrs. Arroyo should leave at least half of the huge budget to her successor.
“The government should impose a glass ceiling when it comes to expenditures. If it only has half of the year, then it should stay on half of the budget,” Recto said.
“It should give budget room to the next administration,” he said.
“It should see to it that the first sentence of the first State of the Nation Address of the next president will not read like this: ‘My countrymen, the treasury is empty,’” he said.
He said the Arroyo administration should not be “in a panic-spending mode in its last days in office.”
He said the President should not listen to her allies who want hundreds of billions in infrastructure and pork barrel funds “frontloaded” or advanced before the public works ban takes effect at the start of the election campaign.
Recto is running for senator under the Liberal Party, whose standard-bearer Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III is leading his opponents in presidential surveys by a wide margin.
Recto said although he does not see a spike in government spending in the first few months of this year because of the public works ban, the people should watch out for “clever ways of going around the prohibition.”
“For example, they can frontload infrastructure spending before the public works ban kicks in. Another way is to label projects as critically needed, when what they intend to achieve is boost the candidacy of their sponsor,” he said.
He urged the Commission on Elections to spell out clearly what is covered by the election-related public works ban.
Administration allies have loaded the 2010 budget with hundreds of billions in what Rep. Edno Joson of Nueva Ecija describes as “campaign funds.”
The Senate-House conference committee that drafted the final version of the budget had cut debt payment funds by P65 billion and diverted the huge reduction to the congressional pork barrel.
Senate finance committee chairman Edgardo Angara and his House counterpart Quirino Rep. Junie Cua jointly headed the conference panel.
Before finalizing the budget three weeks ago, Angara and Cua urged Mrs. Arroyo to frontload or advance the release of infrastructure and pork barrel funds before the start of the public works ban.
UNO insists GMA played favorites
The United Opposition said there’s no denying President Arroyo played favorites when she released P459 million in 2009 to her home district in Pampanga.
“The facts speak for themselves, while other local districts in the country wait in vain for funds for projects that can help in their development efforts, here are a few favored ones who were showered with public funds simply because they enjoy close ties with the incumbent,” UNO campaign manager Ernesto Maceda said.
Maceda also said all those who cornered a lion’s share in fund releases were either relatives or close allies of the President.
He said more than P3 billion was released to Arroyo’s son Dato of the first district of Camarines Sur; over P1 billion each to Arroyo’s brother-in-law Iggy Arroyo of the fifth district of Negros Occidental and favorite traveling companion Martin Romualdez of the first district of Leyte, while billions have likewise been released to Chavit Singson and his son for Ilocos Sur.
“When ranged against the amounts released to more than 200 districts which got no more than P70 million each for the year, and none at all if the representative there is allied with the opposition, then one can rightly say that Mrs. Arroyo’s districts and those of her kin and friends are definitely favored above everyone else,” Maceda said.
While there was nothing illegal about Mrs. Arroyo’s “favoritism,” Maceda said using public funds solely for political leverage was nevertheless reprehensible.
“Favoring certain districts with huge releases takes money away from more urgent projects in others,” Maceda said.
Maceda said the P3 billion released to Dato Arroyo’s district in Camarines Sur and the P5 billion to Pampanga’s second district, could have been put to better use, like completing the Parañaque spillway, identified by authorities as a crucial component of Metro Manila’s flood control program. – With Jose Rodel Clapano