‘2019 budget laden with P83-B Senate pork’

MANILA, Philippines — The 2019 budget is laden with senatorial “pork” amounting to at least P83 billion, according to leaders of the House of Representatives.

In an attempt to pressure the Senate to name senators behind the “pork” insertions, the House has come out with a full-page newspaper advertisement detailing the projects funded from what is left of its pork barrel fund allocations.

In signing the budget law on April 15, President Duterte vetoed or deleted all of the House’s P95 billion worth of last-minute pork barrel fund realignments but did not exercise this power on similar fund diversions made by a number of senators.

“Does this mean that the Senate pork remains intact?” asked House appropriations committee chairman Rolando Andaya Jr.

In the interest of transparency, he said, the Senate has the duty “to tell the people how much in their insertions were carried in the national budget and how big is the bacon each senator is bringing home.”

He added that the House has repeatedly warned the Duterte administration “that the billions of pesos slashed from the 2019 budget just to fund the senators’ pet projects would hamper the implementation of the President’s major infrastructure program.”

Andaya pointed out that the P83-billion senatorial “pork” was pooled from reductions in the appropriations of at least five departments and two lump sums.            

He claimed that the affected departments were transportation, which lost P5 billion in right-of-way (ROW) funds; public works and highways, P11 billion in ROW and an additional P2.5 billion in foreign assisted project money; environment and natural resources, P2.254 billion for its greening program; foreign affairs, P7.5 billion for the Southeast Asia Games in November, of which P5 billion was transferred to the Philippine Sports Commission while P2.5 billion was “nowhere to be found;” and Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, P3 billion for scholarships.

He added that the lump sums that suffered substantial reductions in the hands of senators were pension and gratuity fund, from which was taken P39 billion; and miscellaneous personnel benefits fund (MPBF), which lost P13.4 billion.

The pension and gratuity fund is used for the pension of military, police and coast guard retirees while the MPBF is the source of money for deficiencies in the authorized salaries, bonuses, allowances and other benefits of civilian personnel of the national government.

“The senators unilaterally decided on the budget cuts and realigned them to other items based on request of individual proponents. Up to now, the Senate has yet to make public a detailed report on the proponents who recommended the individual realignments,” Andaya said.

Sen. Panfilo Lacson dismissed the House move to publish a detailed list of the projects funded by its members’ allocation in the 2019 national budget. 

The lawmaker, who has been on the warpath against what he considers illegal insertions in the 2019 General Appropriations Act, said he has already made public the list of amendments he made to the budget.

“Everything is on my website, even provided media copies of the same. I leave it to my colleagues to do what they deem is right,” Lacson said when asked about the newspaper ads. 

He earlier expressed hope that his colleagues in the Senate who proposed projects in the budget would also make public their amendments to remove suspicions that the budget deliberations were “a venue for sneaky horse trading among legislators.”

Senate President Vicente Sotto III and other senators have insisted that the changes made by the chamber to the budget were institutional amendments, and not pork. Among these amendments was the increase in the budget for the Health Facilities Enhancement Fund pushed by Sen. Joseph Victor Ejercito. 

Lacson’s amendments included provisions in the Department of Education budget for a P2-billion increase in the agency’s Quick Response Fund; increase in the School-based Feeding program by nearly P4 billion; as well as the increase in appropriations for the Environmental Management Bureau from P2.523 billion to P2.525 billion, with the P2.352-million increase to fund the monitoring and inventory of greenhouse gases by polluting labs in the Visayas and Mindanao.

For the judiciary,  Lacson proposed an increase in appropriations for the Supreme Court and lower courts by P920.669 million.

Andaya said the House revised the allocations to make the distribution “equitable” and that it was these revisions, unreleased up to now, which the President scrapped in the budget.

Affected by intrigues

The months of wrangling between the House and the Senate over pork barrel insertions have taken a toll on the survey rating of Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, leaders of the larger chamber said yesterday.

“It’s natural that the Speaker’s rating was affected by intrigues on the budget. But what is important is the budget has been enacted and the Duterte administration’s programs could now move forward,” Majority Leader Fredenil Castro said.

To him, Arroyo’s quick response to the earthquake victims was more important than the poll results.

“That is genuine public service, whatever the survey shows,” he said.

San Juan Rep. Ronaldo Zamora, who heads the House contingent in the Commission on Appointments, agreed with Castro.

“The recent earthquake showed us the kind of leadership SGMA has as she is more focused on helping the victims, cutting short her participation in scheduled events to see for herself the rescue and rehab efforts following the earthquake,” Zamora said.

He said Arroyo’s approval ratings “still rose despite the virulent black propaganda that was hurled against her during the intramurals on the budget.” – With Paolo Romero, Delon Porcalla