Impounding the pork

Lawmakers who are unhappy over Malacañang’s decision to toughen the rules in the release of pork barrel are hitting House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. for supposedly yielding the powers of Congress to the Department of Budget and Management. The bellyaching comes mostly from three lawmakers who are trying to provoke Belmonte to assail Malacañang’s supposed diminution of Congress’ power of the purse.

To recall, DBM Secretary Florencio Abad issued guidelines in the release of the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) popularly known by its pejorative name, pork barrel. The move aims “to stem its misuse especially in the run-up to the campaign in next year’s midterm elections,” according to the DBM. As expected, the minority in the House is up in arms. Deputy minority leader Zambales Rep. Milagros Magsaysay described the rules an insult to the majority. Party-list Rep. Raymond Palatino decried the purported tight-fisted policy, saying the move “evoked the totalitarian control” of the martial law years.

Democracy works when there’s division of opinion so let’s look closely at the DBM guidelines. It said that from now on, the department would allow only a single realignment of the pork, subject to approval of certain department secretaries. The process undergoes a second examination, to see to it that the realigned infrastructure project falls under the same implementing unit and category as the original purpose.

Is the process unreasonable, or unattainable?  Unless Magsaysay is making a big fuss to insure her clip in prime time news or her staff  is not competent enough to do the leg and paperwork required by the particular DBM rule, I don’t quite understand the fuss. And what is so unacceptable about removing the so-called quick response-fund from the pork, the 10 percent slice for relief operations unless congressmen would not want part with their own money to help calamity victims? I used to think that when congressmen reach out to typhoon victims, bringing them relief goods and cash assistance, they do so using their own money. From where I sit, the DBM rule merely reinstates the funds to its original commitment. I don’t know what is so deplorable about that.
The rest of the DBM guidelines merely reiterate state regulations to ensure that projects conform to standards, priority list, including safeguards that projects are not just good on paper but real ones delivered to live, not dead beneficiaries.

Meanwhile, Navotas Rep. Tobias Tiangco challenged Belmonte not to give up control of Congress’ power of the purse, saying that yielding it would mean losing leverage. Well, I don’t exactly recall Congress having the upper hand in leveraging in so far as government funds are concerned. While its cooperation is crucial in approving the national budget, the power to disburse is vested solely in the executive since time immemorial.

The move of Malacañang to impose certain requirements in the release of congressional funds is sometimes called the “impounding power” of the executive.
In 2006, former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo exercised this power against her critics in Congress, but no less than the House leader defended her actions. Stinging from the very same criticisms hurled by Tiangco against Belmonte, then Speaker Prospero Nograles defended the move and cited certain reasons for the “delay”: Technical problems in the listing, the identified projects are not in accordance with the 10-point agenda of the administration and question of availability of funds.

But Nograles was also forthright  to say that the other reason could be that the President did not like the face of some congressmen who kept attacking her in public like then opposition Rep. Rolex Suplico.

If Malacanang could be faulted for anything, it is for not taking a hardline stance against the pork barrel.  Investigative report agencies tie up pork barrel with commissions and bribes from contractors. Up to 45 percent of pork barrel funds are lost to commissions. Kickbacks from public works projects make up, on the average, 30 percent of the total project cost. A previous Pulse Asia survey showed that 84 percent of the population are against the system.

Pork barrel as an inducement for “good behavior” among Congress members is nothing new. It has always been the Chief Executive’s weapon to force them to toe the line. Because pork has always been their lifeline, anything that would compromise it makes many, if not all, congressmen nervous and pliant.