Sen. Panfilo Lacson on Saturday said the P3.8-trillion 2019 budget would test President Rodrigo Duterte’s political will in removing the large amount of pork that he claimed it contained, and if that did not work, Sen. Franklin Drilon suggested asking the Supreme Court to excise the lard.
Congress ratified the spending bill on Friday, and the next step is for the President to sign it into law.
Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles has said each item in the measure would be thoroughly scrutinized to make sure there was nothing illegal that could be challenged in the high court.
Lacson, who voted against the measure, said Mr. Duterte in the past showed he could take decisive action when public funds were involved.
He recalled that the President made tycoon Lucio Tan’s Philippine Airlines pay P6 billion in overdue navigational fees and other charges, and also pushed cigarette manufacturer Mighty Corp. to make a P40-billion tax settlement.
“Now, this is another test or affirmation, if I may call it that, of his political will. I am hoping that since he has a reputation of having political will, he will excise what are clearly pork funds [from the budget],” Lacson said in a radio interview.
Drilon, the minority leader, also said the President could exercise his veto power, though he was not optimistic that Mr. Duterte would do that.
“The first line of defense is the President because he has line-item veto power,” Drilon said, also in a radio interview.
‘Abuse of discretion’
He also voted against the proposed budget, saying senators were not given enough time to study the bicameral report on the measure.
Drilon said groups or individuals who believed the 2019 budget violated the Supreme Court’s earlier ruling invalidating the pork barrel system could take their case to the tribunal.
“There was abuse of discretion on the part of many legislators in inserting their projects in the budget,” he said, citing what could be a probable violation in the budget process.
In a landmark 2013 ruling, the Supreme Court declared the “pork barrel” system unconstitutional and banned all “past and present pork barrel laws … and the various congressional insertions, which conferred personal, lump-sum allocations to legislators from which they are able to fund specific projects which they themselves determine.”
Members of the Makabayan bloc in the House of Representatives also challenged Mr. Duterte to make good on his campaign promise against corruption by vetoing the pork items in the budget.
“The shameful passage of the pork-laden 2019 budget presents a golden opportunity for President Duterte to prove he is really against graft and corruption, by using his veto powers to take out the billions of insertions,” said Bayan Muna Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate.
Zarate said that “as a matter of policy and principle,” the Makabayan lawmakers would not use any pork that may have been apportioned to them.
‘Baseline allocation’
According House appropriations committee chair Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr. the “baseline allocation” for each House member amounted to at least P160 million.
The “guidance” from Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was that no district should be “left behind” and “no one should end up empty-handed,” he told reporters on Friday.
“Naturally, districts with bigger needs, such as areas that were hit by recent natural calamities will get a bigger share,” Andaya added.
Drilon said that when he served as executive secretary in the 1990s, the countrywide development fund, an earlier version the pork barrel, amounted to around P2.5 billion.
‘Warped’
But in the present budget, almost the same amount was allocated to projects in just one province, he said.
“It’s up to the people to judge this,” he added.
Lacson said it was understandable for some lawmakers to impress their constituents with local projects in an election year, but the budget process to do this was “warped.”
Local Development Councils are supposed to propose projects for their districts, with approval from their respective Regional Development Councils.
The district representatives or their staff are expected to attend these council meetings so they could shepherd the funding for those projects when Congress discusses the spending bill. But they don’t attend and lawmakers “arbitrarily” make changes in the budget without the knowledge of the local governments, according to Lacson.
“That is the problem. There is a disconnect between the needs and priorities of (local government units), especially the far-flung ones, and the national budget. The national budget fails to address the needs so the distribution of national wealth is not equitable,” he said.
In a speech after members of the House of Representatives ratified the committee report on Friday, Arroyo declared that passage of the budget showed the President had the full backing of the chamber under her leadership.
“Delivering the President’s priority legislative agenda as enunciated in his 2018 State of the Nation Address was my own commitment when you elected me to be your Speaker last July, and we have delivered,” she said.
“Let the critics carp, but I am hopeful that our people shall know that this 17th Congress has been hard at work for the people who dutifully and thoughtfully marked ballots in May 2016 to mandate our presence here,” Arroyo said. —With a report from Melvin Gascon