Congress ratifies 2020 budget
Lacson leaves fate of R83-B ‘pork’ to President Duterte
The Senate and the House of Representatives separately ratified on Wednesday the bicameral conference committee report on the P4.1-trillion national budget for 2020. Sen. Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara, chair of the Senate Committee on Finance and sponsor of the measure, said the measure would be transmitted as soon as possible to Malacañang for President Duterte’s signature. “We passed a budget with no pork, no parked funds, and no delays with full transparency,” declared House Speaker Alan Peter
Cayetano in an apparent reaction to allegations of Sen. Panfilo Lacson about pork barrel insertion.
Earlier, Lacson did not attend the signing of the bicameral report, saying he learned after their Tuesday plenary session that the questionable “lump sum” appropriations were inserted.
He expressed opposition to the ratification of the bicameral report on the budget, saying he found it riddled again with “pork” insertions amounting to ₱83 billion. “Pork is here to stay. I hope the President will again exercise his political will in vetoing line items that will obviously waste people’s tax money,” Lacson said.
Lacson said he is leaving to President Duterte whether or not to veto tens of billions of pesos worth of lawmakers’ pork barrel projects described as “lumps sum” appropriations inserted in the last minute in the bicameral conference committee report.
Lacson said his office received from the House of Representatives, through the Senate Legislative Budget Research and Monitoring Office (LBRMO), one USB drive containing two files, the “Source” File and the “List” File.
“Our preliminary scrutiny of the last-minute insertions made by the House would indicate that the “Source
File” contained the list of 1,253 budget items worth ₱83.219 billion that was apparently used as the congressmen’s ‘source’ of their ‘list’ of 742 projects worth ₱16.345 billion that were inserted in the bicameral report that was signed by both panels this morning (December 11),” Lacson pointed out.
“Since there is no preliminary explanation from the House regarding the two files, we cannot ascertain if indeed only ₱16.345 billion or the bigger amount of ₱83.219 billion was inserted at the last minute prior to the bicameral signing,” Lacson said.
Lacson, chairman of the Senate Committee on Accounts, stressed that what is clear is that there are still lump sums and vaguely described projects that are now part of the bicameral conference committee report.
The top seven provinces that were listed as recipients of the pork barrel funds include Albay, ₱670 million; Cavite, ₱580 million; Sorsogon, ₱570 million; Batangas, ₱502 million; Bulacan, ₱440 million; Pangasinan, ₱420 million; Cebu, ₱410 million, among others.
“Also, 117 flood control projects worth ₱3.179 billion dominate the insertions, with eight projects uniformly budgeted at ₱60 million each,” Lacson said.
Lacson rued that there were more corruption-driven insertions in the files sent to him that he has not mentioned.
“Thus, we will continue to diligently scrutinize it and inform the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and the Office of the President (OP), as I have high hopes that President Rodrigo Duterte will again display his aversion to corruption,” he said.
But Angara, in an interview, said that while there were last minute adjustments to the final committee report, both the Senate and House contingent made sure that these conform to the Supreme Court’s (SC) ruling on the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) which is also known as the pork barrel. “If it’s line item, according to the Supreme Court, it’s not considered pork if there is a line item for that. We tried to conform to the decision of the Supreme Court … and we tried to avoid lump sums, (that’s) number one,” “And secondly, we tried to line item yung projects, and here, there are no more post enactment legislation… Even before we approve, the projects should be itemized,” said Angara. House Minority Leader and Manila Rep. Bienvenido Abante said Lacson should have pointed out his complaints prior to the signing of the bicameral report.
“But he was not present yesterday (Wednesday) to air his misgivings over the bicameral report,” noted Abante.