House leader maintains 2018 budget ‘pork-less’
There are no pork barrel funds in the 2018 national budget in the sense that the Supreme Court (SC) had defined such appropriations, House Majority Leader Rodolfo Fariñas insisted yesterday.
He said under the SC decision declaring the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) as unconstitutional, pork barrel funds are “lump sums where the legislator is given the power of post enactment identification of projects.”
“The key words are ‘lump sums’ and ‘post enactment identification.’ It means that there is simply a lump sum allocated and the legislator takes part in the execution of the budget after (post) its enactment by identifying the projects for which such lump sum shall be used. There is no such thing in the budget now,” he said.
The PDAF used to be the congressional pork barrel until the SC struck it down in November 2013. It was a P25-billion lump sum in the annual budget. It allocated P200 million for each senator and P70 million for each House member. Lawmakers listed their projects after the budget was enacted.
“Congress has the power to decide which projects should be funded or given appropriations. Thus, when we list down projects in the General Appropriations Bill (GAB) and duly approved by the President, it becomes the General Appropriations Act or the budget law,” Fariñas said.
He said any appropriation for a project listed in the budget law “cannot fall under the term pork barrel, as such was identified prior to the enactment of the budget.”
“There is no post enactment identification that is involved,” he said.
He added that anyone could question any itemized appropriation in the budget before the SC “and I am sure it will not be considered as pork barrel.”
Anti-pork barrel Sen. Panfilo Lacson has said funds for projects identified by senators and House members before the enactment of the budget could still be considered as pork barrel.
He said lawmakers have found a way of going around the SC prohibition by identifying projects and providing the needed funds while they are considering the annual budget.