Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon
MANILA, Philippines — The multi-billion peso funds for infrastructure projects under the proposed P4.5 trillion national budget for 2021 could be “abused” for the 2022 elections, Senate Minority Franklin Drilon said.
This, as a power struggle brews in the House of Representatives fueled by the “disparity” in infrastructure budget allocations in the congressmen’s respective districts.
“I would like to attribute good faith but you cannot discount this as part of the preparation for 2022. I have been in Congress long enough that if there’s anything that we should do, [it is to] exercise extra vigilance in what is called the election year budget because that will be the source of favors that those in power will be dispensing,” Drilon said in an interview on ABS-CBN News Channel.
“That’s our concern. We’re not saying that it would be used, I don’t want to attribute malice, but certainly it is open to corruption and abuse for the 2022 elections,” he added.
Asked if he thinks the ongoing row in the lower chamber of Congress is a “battle for pork,” Drilon opted not to comment but surmised that House lawmakers are “frustrated” by the supposed lack of transparency in the budget allocations for infrastructure projects.
“I will not want to respond to that [question]. Inter-parliamentary courtesy prevents me from doing so but we note that statements of certain congressmen who said that they were frustrated by the lack of transparency in a number of discretionary lump sum appropriations,” the minority leader said.
“From the statements coming from the members of the House, it really would appear that a basic cause of the disagreement would be the lack of transparency in the allocation of public works projects, especially that P469 billion in the public works department would have to be disaggregated,” he added.
Drilon was referring to the amount earlier flagged by Senator Panfilo Lacson, who pointed out that it is either funds for rehashed infrastructure projects or lump sum appropriations lodged under the proposed 2021 budget of the DPWH.
“We have not yet come to analyze the budget of the DPWH in detail, what we know is that there is P469 billion in lump sum without any specification of the projects to be funded. From our understanding, this was caused by a delay in the decision of the DPWH which projects to fund and this delay, in the choice of the projects to fund, is because of the delay of the submission of the projects by the members of Congress,” Drilon explained.
“This is something that we will watch out for. This 469 billion must be disaggregated and projects [should be] specified. Otherwise, this becomes a lump sum fund where the participation of Congress will become again after the enactment which is prohibited by the Supreme Court decision,” he added.