MANILA, Philippines – There’s a “strong possibility” that President Rodrigo Duterte and other Cabinet officials were involved in the alleged “insertions” of infrastructure funds in the proposed 2019 national budget, an opposition lawmaker said Thursday.
“I don’t think Secretary Diokno can do this on his own,” Albay 1st Dist. Rep. Edcel Lagman said in a press conference, adding that the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) chief probably “has the consent” of other government officials.
“There is a strong possibility… Including members of the Cabinet, including the President,” he added.
Minority Leader Danilo Suarez and Majority Leader Rolando Andaya Jr. have been accusing DBM Secretary Benjamin Diokno of orchestrating the “insertion” of some P75 billion infrastructure fund in the proposed 2019 national budget. They believed Diokno purportedly did this without the knowledge of President Rodrigo Duterte and the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).
But Diokno has denied this.
READ: Andaya says Diokno behind P75-B insertion in DPWH budget
Andaya further said district congressmen were also not aware of these funds allotted to their districts.
The Camarines Sur congressman also tagged a Bulacan-based single proprietorship CT Leoncio Construction and Trading as involved in what he branded as “large-scale scam” since it bagged billions of pesos in government contracts in various provinces across the country based on the National Expenditure Program (NEP) submitted by Malacañang to Congress.
The NEP, which contains the breakdown of proposed allocations in government, was prepared by the executive branch.
Andaya bared his exposés after Senator Panfilo Lacson alleged that Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo got P2.4 billion in pork funds while he got P1.9 billion.
Arroyo, Andaya, and House Appropriations Committee Senior Vice Chair Maria Carmen Zamora have denied this.
“The instruction [of Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to the House Appropriations Committee] was to give equal funding. I remember that the terminology used was ‘bare minimum’,” Andaya said.
INQUIRER.net has sought statement from Malacañang regarding Lagman’s remark but has yet to receive its comment, as of this posting. /kga
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