Duterte’s calamity fund slashed by P21.5 B

President Duterte’s calamity fund for this year has been cut by P21.5 billion.

Budget documents show that the President had proposed a calamity fund of P37.3 billion when he submitted a P3.35-trillion 2017 budget to Congress in August.

But the budget Duterte signed last Dec. 22 shows a much smaller appropriation of P15.8 billion for calamity-related activities like relief and reconstruction operations, an indication that Congress slashed the fund by P21.5 billion.

Sen. Panfilo Lacson revealed the huge reduction on Wednesday when he said the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has regained some P8.6 billion in pork barrel funds for congressmen.

He said the amount came from the calamity fund.

Davao City Rep. Karlo Nograles, who chairs the House appropriations committee, did not categorically deny Lacson’s allegations but explained that as of Oct. 31, 2016 the fund had a balance of P30 billion.

“This amount will be carried over to 2017. So, adding this to the new 2017 appropriation of P15.8 billion, the total calamity fund at government’s disposal for 2017 will be more than P40 billion. So in reality, there is no slashing of fund as claimed by Senator Lacson,” he said.

Earlier, Lacson removed more than P8 billion from the DPWH and returned the money to the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), claiming that the huge amount was “pork” for ARMM lawmakers who vainly pleaded with him to move it back to the DPWH.

As a compromise, he later agreed to have the money allocated to the Commission on Higher Education for additional scholarships.

After Duterte signed the budget, Lacson discovered that at least P8.6 billion was returned to the DPWH.

Citing information he received from colleagues and some members of the House of Representatives, he said ARMM lawmakers would have P1.5 billion each in pork barrel funds while some favored congressmen would have as much as P5 billion.

He said his colleagues were asked to identify projects worth P300 million.

Nograles did not categorically deny Lacson’s allegations but asserted that there are no pork barrel funds in the 2017 budget in the context of the Supreme Court’s definition of such appropriations.

Under the tribunal’s November 2013 ruling, which declared the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) as unconstitutional, the congressional pork barrel funds are lump sums that can be considered illegal because it “allowed legislators to wield, in varying gradiations, non-oversight, post-enactment authority in vital areas of budget executions (thus violating) the principle of separation of powers.”