MANILA, Philippines—It’s much worse than pork barrel.

A total of P11.5 billion in public works projects, made through congressional insertions in the 2008 budget, could be used to bolster the campaign funds of select lawmakers in the 2010 elections, Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago said Tuesday.

Santiago described the congressional insertions as “cloak-and-dagger affair” much worse than pork barrel because these were done in secret.

“I cannot tell how much of the insertions came from which chamber. These are the joint insertion of both the Senate and the House. So in effect, the two chambers are equally guilty. Give me a little bit more time (and I will be able to identify them),” she said in an interview with reporters.

Santiago has filed Resolution No. 659 urging the Senate finance committee to tackle not only the P200-million double insertion in the C-5 road extension project but also all other congressional insertions at its meeting scheduled for Monday.

Strong suspicions

“The life of an appropriation is two years. In 2009, President Macapagal-Arroyo may release the P11.5-billion insertions. By 2010, each project may continue to be implemented. Hence, I strongly suspect that most of these secret projects are going to be used by incumbent legislators for the 2010 elections,” said Santiago, vice chair of the finance committee.

She said the bulk of the funds or P7.9 billion constituted “large, lump-sum appropriations,” raising questions about who would determine which project would get the funds from the allocations.

“(These projects) should be subjected to the usual social benefit-cost analysis. This could be a standing invitation to corruption,” she said.

Santiago pointed out that some of the congressional insertions had very “low economic return,” such as multipurpose buildings that got P131.1 million in total allocations.

She said certain projects were better off in the hands of local government than lawmakers such as the markets in Tabaco City; San Vicente, Ilocos Sur; Arayat, Pampanga; and Mahayag, Zamboanga del Sur. These projects have a “rich potential for kickbacks,” she said.

Santiago said that some water system projects were also better handled by the Local Water Utilities Administration than by the legislators who proposed them.

The water projects are in Pangasinan, fifth district; Bataan, second district; Muñoz, Nueva Ecija; Negros Oriental, first district; Negros Oriental, third district; Dumingag, Zamboanga del Sur; and South Cotabato, second district.

Santiago has criticized the congressional practice of amending the budget in “closed-door sessions” of the bicameral conference committee.

Unconstitutional

If the Supreme Court would rule on the congressional insertions today, Santiago reckoned that Chief Justice Reynato Puno would declare them unconstitutional because the “bicameral does not have an ex post veto power.”

She said the bicameral committee “does not have the power to add or delete provisions in a budget already approved on third reading by both houses.”

Santiago based her view on the decision of Puno in the 1994 case Tolentino vs. the Secretary of Finance in which the Supreme Court was “badly divided on the issue of budgetary insertions.”

She also cited former Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr.’s stand that the bicameral committee’s role was limited to reconciling disagreeing provisions, while retired Justice Flerida Ruth P. Romero stated that the congressional insertions “transfer the lawmaking power to a small group of members who work out in private a decision that usually prevails.”