LP: No hand in choice of partymate in pork scam as House panel chair

Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab. Photo from congress.gov.ph

MANILA, Philippines — Neither President Benigno Aquino III nor the Liberal Party had a hand in the selection of a partymate, who has been linked to the “pork barrel scam”, as chairman of the appropriations committee at the House of Representatives.

The choice of Davao City Representative Isidro Ungab as head of the appropriations committee was a decision of his “peers upon the endorsement of Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr.” and would be “inaccurate to claim that LP was responsible”, said Western Samar Representative Mel Senen Sarmiento, LP secretary general.

The administration party tried to field another lawmaker for the chairmanship, Sarmiento said.

Ungab was included in a list of lawmakers who allegedly allocated funding for pet projects under the Kaupdanan para sa Mangunguma Foundation Inc. (KPMI), one of the supposedly bogus non-government organizations set up by businesswoman Janet Lim Napoles, tagged as the brains behind the P10-billion scam.

Ungab was appointed as chairman of the appropriations committee and would lead the House deliberations on the proposed national budget for 2014, set to begin next week.

Sarmiento denied that the President and the LP had anything to do with Napoles.

“Allegations that President Aquino and LP have something to do with the alleged P10-billion pork barrel scam is malicious. It was under this administration that this dubious practice of allocating PDAF to bogus NGOs was stopped,” he said, referring to the Priority Development Assistance Fund or pork barrel of legislators.

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