P100M per congressman in 2020 budget defended

MANILA, Philippines — A House leader on Friday defended the P100-million allocation for each of the 300 representatives in the proposed 2020 budget, arguing it was all itemized and thus could not be considered pork.

“When we speak of the P100 million, they are all specified in the budget by line items stated in the national expenditure program and it was also adopted by the House of Representatives,” Cavite Rep. Elpidio Barzaga Jr. said.

In a television interview, Barzaga confirmed the statement of Albay Rep. Joey Salceda that each House member would be entitled to P100 million worth of projects in the general appropriations bill, which the chamber approved on third reading last month.

“That allocation of P100 million per congressman is divided into P70 million for hard projects and P30 million for the so-called soft projects,” he said.

Hard projects refer to infrastructure items such as roads, bridges and multipurpose buildings, while soft projects come in the form of medical, educational or health assistance.

Barzaga, president of the National Unity Party, said it was important to distinguish such allocations from pork barrel funds, which the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional in 2013.

‘All line items’

“Well, actually, we have to identify what is pork. As decided by the Supreme Court in the case of Belgica in 2013, it refers to those allocations which are unprogrammed, meaning to say they are not line items,” he said.

“Insofar as our P100 million is concerned, they are all line items,” Barzaga said.

But in September, Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano said it was not accurate to say each lawmaker would be receiving a P100-million allocation in the 2020 budget, since some of them had submitted proposed funding for their districts that was “much more” than that, while others sought “much less.”

“There’s no P100 million per congressman,” the Taguig lawmaker told reporters in an interview. “It’s already specified per district,” he added.

“So they might be referring to the submitted [proposals] but actually [Salceda] was talking about a possible minimum, but some submitted much more, [while others submitted] much less,” he said.

He said it was already difficult to determine the minimum amount each lawmaker would receive, since the allocations were “scattered” throughout the budget stages, with some of them submitting their proposals to the House, and others directly to the public works department during the planning stage.