COMELEC INTEL FUNDS ‘LIKE PORK’

Third petition file against Priority Development Assistance Fund

THE intelligence fund of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) is no different from the controversial pork barrel of lawmakers, said former poll commissioner Augusto Lagman, as these are both being spent at the exclusive discretion of the ones holding them.

“Indeed, it’s (intelligence funds) the equivalent of pork barrel . When I received mine (intel funds) before, once I signed the liquidation (report), the P1.25 million will be mine,” said Lagman.

In May 2013, he revealed that Comelec officials receive intelligence funds without the need for a detailed liquidation with him being given a total of P1.25 million during his brief 10-month stay at the commission.

All the more it can be likened, the former poll official said, is because it allegedly came from the so-called presidential pork barrel.

“They will give P30 million. But if they will say no need to investigate the so-called election saboteurs, what’s the intelligence funds for?” asked Lagman, who is among the petitioners in the writ of habeas data case filed at the Court of Appeals (CA).

Because of this similarity with the Priority Development Assistance Funds (PDAF), Lagman called on his former colleagues at the Comelec to reject the intelligence funds being given to them.

Lagman’s call comes amid the multi-billion pork barrel scam, wherein lawmakers supposedly funneled their PDAF to the fake non-government organizations of Janet Lim-Napoles to finance ghost projects.

A former mayor in Marinduque, meanwhile, asked the Supreme Court to reverse the constitutionality of the PDAF and channel the allocation to local governments units for their projects.

In a seven-page petition, former Boac mayor Pedrito Nepomuceno said the PDAF has become the “most abused” government fund.

“[I]t has become a suppressive scheme as it was become a tool to divide our leaders and out people rather than a development tool to develop our nation,” the petition read.

Last week, the High Court ordered Congress to comment on the petition filed by losing senatorial candidate Samson Alcantara seeking to stop the Legislative branch from appropriating funds for pork barrel.