What a circus!
Sen. Leila de Lima on Monday expressed bewilderment over the series of allegations and counter-allegations involving different characters at the House of Representatives, the Senate, and Malacañang, exposing various ways taxpayers’ money was being misused.
In a dispatch from her detention cell at Camp Crame, the senator lauded anti-pork crusader Sen. Panfilo Lacson for opening “more than a can of worms” when he began his revelations of last-minute insertions in the P3.757-trillion budget for 2019.
“What a royal rumble!” exclaimed De Lima.
READ: Lacson: Hundreds of billions in ‘pork’ hidden in 2019 budget
“Duterte’s political allies, political vultures all, are now at each other’s throat – House Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo versus [former Speaker Pantaleon] Alvarez, and Representatives [Rolando] Andaya Jr. and [Danilo] Suarez versus Budget Secretary [Benjamin] Diokno over the billions of ‘pork’ largesse sneakily inserted into the proposed national budget,” she said.
De Lima likened the series of exposés to the Watergate scandal and the so-called “follow-the-money rule.”
“Verily, thanks to Sen. Ping Lacson whose exposé has opened more than a can of worms,” she said.
“It has become obvious that these huge chunks of public funds were made to appear as [the] legitimate budget of agencies to sidestep the Supreme Court’s ruling against the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) or more popularly known as ‘pork barrel,’” De Lima said.
She said Andaya’s accusations against Diokno and the House’s call for his resignation had put Arroyo on a direct collision course with President Duterte.
“So what’s happening, is this the beginning of the end of the Duterte-Arroyo unholy alliance?” she said.
“The web of corruption can only get wider and more egregious. It is hard to believe that this was not done by a clique of insiders in Malacañang, but it is much harder to believe that Duterte has neither hand nor knowledge about this,” she said.
De Lima also cited the latest revelations about the “parking of pork” in the budget by lawmakers in a bid to sidestep safeguards against discretionary lump sums in the spending bill, as well as the misuse of the P45-billion road user’s tax.
“Corruption galore indeed! Their greed knows no bounds,” she said.
The pork barrel system, according to De Lima, is plaguing the country once more, and “like a bacteria of a different strain, attacking again the country’s public financial nervous system with morbid intensity under this regime.” /ee