House attempt to return ‘pork’ malevolent – Lacson

Sen. Panfilo Lacson described yesterday as “malevolent” the attempts of the leadership of the House of Representative to skirt the ruling of the Supreme Court to include pork barrel in the 2017 national budget.

Lacson was referring to the SC ruling in 2013 declaring the Priority Development Assistance Fund ( PDAF) of the members of Congress as unconstitutional as it allowed them to put in lump sum allocations in the national budget and later dictate which projects it will fund after the expenditure program is enacted into law.

Navotas City Rep. Tobias Tiangco, Kabayan party- list Rep. Harry Roque and other members of the House earlier disclosed they were asked to submit a list of projects to the chamber’s leadership totaling P80 million each so that they can be specified as line items in the 2017 national budget.

“Legislators submitting projects prior to submission of the President’s budget (Na- tional Expenditure Program or NEP) to Congress is tantamount to prostituting the whole budget process,” Lacson said.

“It is also a malevolent way of going around the intent of the SC decision in declaring as unconstitutional the pork barrel system,” he added.

Lacson noted that what makes the process worse is when the executive branch, through the Department of Budget and Management and Congress leaders, “conspire to fool the Filipino people and probably continue robbing them of their hard earned tax money.”

“Pork is pork no matter how they describe and hide its form,” he added.

Lacson warned that House members would be hardpressed to justify the participation of the legislators in a purely executive function of preparing the NEP.

He noted that the role of the legislative branch in the budget process is to deliber- ate, scrutinize and introduce amendments to reduce but not to increase the proposed budget, prior to giving it back to the executive branch as an Enrolled Bill. This bill can be approved or vetoed by the President in part or as a whole piece of legislation.

Incoming speaker Pantaleon Alvarez earlier stressed that there will be no pork barrel or lump sum allocations for members of Congress.

Alvarez claimed lawmakers under his leadership will only be allowed to propose projects needed in their districts.

“I never said that members of the House of Representatives ‘will be entitled to their usual district allocations.’ The Supreme Court has already ruled against such lump sum allocations,” he said.

Alvarez said the function of identifying priority projects is inherent in members of the House because “the people go directly to us to tell us what projects are badly needed by their communities.”