Senator Allan Peter Cayetano INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines—Senate Majority leader Alan Cayetano and Ramon Revilla Jr. welcomed the statement of President Benigno Aquino III Friday announcing the abolition of the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), also known as the pork barrel.
A multi-billion peso pork barrel scam, allegedly masterminded by Janet Lim-Napoles, has caused widespread public outrage and protests calling to scrap the pork barrel system.
Senator Ramon Revilla Jr., despite being cited by the Commission on Audit’s (COA) special audit report as having P413 million of his PDAF going to dubious nongovernment organizations from 2007-2009, expressed support for Aquino’s statement.
“I welcome the move of the President to abolish the pork barrel system just as I supported an earlier similar move in the Senate,” Revilla said in a text message in response to Aquino’s press conference.
“This issue has unnecessarily tarnished the legislature so much that the safeguards now proposed by the President is a very welcome development,” he said.
Cayetano called Aquino a “true reformist” even as he urged the public to support the massive protest set on Monday at the Rizal Park in Manila.
“Because of these big decisions we see that Aquino is really a ‘true reformist.’ He is not afraid to make reforms at to listen to the will of our countrymen,” Cayetano said in a statement.
“I congratulate the Filipino people. If they did not strengthen the campaign against the pork barrel, this reform might not happen immediately. Let us support the Million Person March on Monday against the PDAF to continue the public pressure against this type of corruption,” he said.
Cayetano has filed a resolution at the Senate calling for the scrapping of PDAF.
RELATED STORIES
It’s time to abolish pork barrel–Aquino
OFWs in Hong Kong start chain of protest vs ‘pork barrel’
Calls to scrap ‘pork’ snowball in Senate
Names of ‘pork’ fund beneficiaries taken from list of board, bar passers–COA
The COA report: The blame game begins
74 solons exceeded PDAF by ‘hundreds of millions’