Lawmaker: No House PDAF for LGUs
No member of the House of Representatives has allocated his or her outlawed Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) as financial assistance to any local government unit, House leaders said yesterday.
Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab, appropriations committee chairman, said he and his colleagues had agreed to realign their funds to executive agencies that implement projects in their respective districts and deliver services to their constituents.
He said these agencies are the Departments of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), Labor and Employment, Health (DOH), Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), and Commission on Higher Education.
Giving financial assistance to any LGU was not part of the agreement from the start, he added.
Ungab was reacting to reports attributed to Sen. Francis Escudero that there were certain House members who allocated their funds “in areas where their allies are.”
Escudero supposedly made the statement in defending beleaguered colleague Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, who allocated P100 million of his P200-million PDAF to Manila, where his father, former President Joseph Estrada, is mayor.
Estrada split the remaining P100 million between Caloocan City, whose mayor is a member of Vice President Jejomar Binay’s United Nationalist Alliance, to which the Estradas belong, and Lal-lo town in Cagayan province, where another UNA leader, Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, comes from.
The PDAF, which the Supreme Court (SC) has struck down as unconstitutional, allocated P70 million for each House member and P200 million for each senator.
The SC decision came after President Aquino had submitted to Congress his 2014 budget proposal, which still included the annual P25.4-billion PDAF.
The House, except for three to four members, and nine senators opted to realign their funds. Fifteen senators gave up their allocations.
Ungab said it was their agreement that P24 million out of every House member’s P70-million allocation should be given to the DPWH for various infrastructure projects in their districts, which should be itemized in the national budget.
He said the remaining P46 million was allotted to social services, like health and education.
Rep. Elpidio Barzaga Jr. of Dasmariñas City in Cavite said giving financial assistance to LGUs was not included in the agreement because House members might be suspected of manipulating and controlling the use of the funds, which the SC has banned.
“That suspicion cannot be avoided if you give funds to a city or town where you come from, or where your relative is mayor, like in my case (his wife Jenny is Dasmariñas mayor),” he said.