Militant lawmakers asked to justify acceptance of ‘pork’

MANILA, Philippines - Malacañang yesterday called on members of the militant minority bloc in the House of Representatives to justify why they keep on receiving their yearly pork barrel fund allocations despite making proposals for its unconditional abolition.

“They should be the ones to explain why they are calling for the abolition yet they avail of the funds under their Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF),” deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said.

As it turned out ironically, party-list and militant lawmakers in the House - among them Bayan Muna, Anakpawis, ACT Teachers, women’s group Gabriela and Kabataan - were among those who enjoyed annual pork barrel allocations.

These groups were calling for the unconditional abolition of the pork barrel and also said they “will not plead” before Malacañang to release their pork barrel allocations every year.

“I don’t think that pleading is needed considering that most of it has been released in the past year,” Valte said.

Valte urged the public to monitor PDAF releases of their congressmen, which are all available online at the www.dbm.gov.ph or at the official website of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).

“So, if you’re interested how your district representative utilizes his PDAF, you can see it there. You can see when it’s released. You can see what are the projects that are being funded out of your representatives’ PDAF. It’s all there,” Valte said in pointing out the website.

The DBM website showed that in 2009, P25.450 million was released to Anakpawis, P29.650 million to Bayan Muna, and P30.5 million to Gabriela.

In 2010, the DBM released P15 million to ACT Teachers, P36.7 million to Anakpawis, P73.3 million to Bayan Muna, P59.9 million to Gabriela, and P20 million to Kabataan.

In 2011, ACT Teachers received P50 million; Anakpawis, P26.795 million; Bayan Muna, P30 million; Gabriela, P97 million; and Kabataan, P46.695 million.

Last year, P20 million was made available to ACT Teachers, P52.3 million to Anakpawis, P124.775 million to Bayan Muna, P42.950 million to Gabriela, and P22.950 million to Kabataan.

This year, Bayan Muna received P83.350 million, while P20 million was released to Anakpawis, though these amounts represented the two groups’ PDAF balance for previous years.

– With Edu Punay, Paolo Romero