MANILA, Philippines?After slamming President Benigno Aquino III?s proposed P21-billion fund to be doled out in cash to the poorest of the poor, Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo finds herself under scrutiny for what appears to be P2.2 billion in pork barrel going to her district in Pampanga.

?Before she left office, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo used the presidency to engineer perpetually high funding for the second district of Pampanga,? Akbayan party-list Rep. Walden Bello said in Thursday?s press conference at the House of Representatives.

Bello and another Akbayan representative, Kaka Bag-ao, said Arroyo had her own explaining to do.

Bello blamed Arroyo for the aggressive stance of the Aquino administration in reducing poverty incidence in the country.

?That, if you are in a position of having to fulfill your millennium development goals of halving the poverty rate by (year) 2015, and all the previous administration left you with, in fact, is an increased rate of poverty, then you have to be innovative and you have to devolve (the distribution of government subsidies) in the way that we have the CCT program at this point in time,? Bello said.

Bello said ?GMA?s (Arroyo?s initials) highway robbery plunged Congress into a budget dilemma.?

He said the huge sum of taxpayer?s money going to Arroyo?s district contributed to the ?crisis? in the on-going budget deliberations.

The former President ?legislated the budget for the second district of Pampanga while she was President to secure her political interests,? Bello said.

The two allies of Mr. Aquino said Arroyo, while still the President, increased the public works budget of her congressional district with foreign-assisted projects worth P2,220,526,000.

The funds will come from the national budget (P564.359 million) and loans from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), and the Korean Economic Development and Cooperation Fund (a total of P1.678 billion).

Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson has authorized only P22 million for Pampanga in public works funds for next year, but the rest of the P2.2 billion are loans contracted by Arroyo when she was still in Malacañang.

Under the proposed P90-billion budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) for next year, Arroyo?s district will receive projects such as national arterial and secondary roads, municipal roads, local highways, bridges and flood control.

The roads are the Angeles-Porac-Floridablanca-Dinalupihan Road, San Fernando-Lubao Road, Gapan-San Fernando-Olongapo Road. The bridges are in San Mateo, Remedios, San Antonio and Natividad.

Bulk in Lubao

The biggest project is the Mt. Pinatubo Hazard Urgent Mitigation Project (flood/lahar control works in Porac-Gumain river and Pasac delta area) dubbed ?Pampanga phase III? and to be funded by JBIC to the tune of P1.443 billion.

?The bulk is in Lubao,? Bello said, referring to Arroyo?s hometown.

Arroyo?s spokesperson Elena Bautista-Horn said the P2.2 billion would go to two major projects?the Pinatubo hazard-mapping project and the Korean-funded roads contracted as early as 2003.

Horn told reporters that the hazard mapping started in 1996 ?way before two Presidents and prior to President Arroyo?s term (which began in 2001). So, in my view, it?s not right to say that former President Arroyo used her influence for this project.?

The loan agreement was signed in March 1996 in the aftermath of the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption, she added.

On the costly flood control project, Pampanga is a catch basin of waters from nearby provinces in Region 3, Horn said. (Aside from Pampanga, Region 3 or Central Luzon region is composed of the provinces of Aurora, Bataan, Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Tarlac and Zambales?Ed.)

CCT under fire

Akbayan made the disclosure two days after the former President took the floor, showing her displeasure over the proposed budget of P21 billion for the Aquino administration?s conditional cash transfer (CCT) program.

On Tuesday night, Arroyo called the massive expansion of the antipoverty program that she had begun as irresponsible, ambitious and untimely.

The Pampanga representative had questioned the wisdom of allocating P21 billion in 2011 (up from P10 billion this year) for the conditional cash assistance to 2.3 million families (up from 1 million), saying the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) would still have to hire and train more people to oversee and monitor the program.

She said there were not enough classrooms and birthing facilities for the beneficiaries.

Under the CCT, the poorest of the poor families would receive monthly cash assistance on the condition that they would send their children to school and have pregnant mothers regularly go for checkups. These conditions are intended to help the country meet the UN millennium development goals by 2015.

Loans Arroyo contracted

?It is outrageous that the DPWH has control over barely 1 percent of the budget for public works in the second district of Pampanga,? Bello said. ?Even the secretary himself has conceded that he is helpless when it comes to the loans that Arroyo had contracted.?

Bag-ao said this forced the House leadership to concede to members? demands and to inflate their pork barrel.

The congressmen, led by allies of Mr. Aquino, demanded a bigger share in the distribution of the budgetary pie after learning that other districts would be receiving larger allocations in the proposed national budget for 2011.

Bag-ao was referring to the additional P50 million in infrastructure funds going to each congressional district starting next year, which is on top of the P70 million in annual pork barrel that every House member will receive.

Their protests led to a compromise worked out by Budget Secretary Florencio Abad and Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr., which further strained scant government resources, Bello said.