Western Samar Representative Mel Senen Sarmiento. Photo from https://www.congress.gov.ph
MANILA, Philippines – Expect no second coming of the Priority Development Assistance Fund if some members of the House of Representatives are to be believed.
Congressmen who signed a House majority statement calling for the abolition of the PDAF made it clear that they were doing so under the condition that the controversial pork barrel would not be resurrected under a different item or name.
“Pag sinabing tanggalin, tanggalin ha (When you say abolish it, then let’s abolish it),” Antipolo Rep. Roberto Puno, head of the National Unity Party (NUP), told the Philippine Daily Inquirer, recalling the concern raised by some of his colleagues during a majority caucus presided over by Speaker Feliciano Belmonte last Monday.
Puno said he and other NUP legislators were concerned that the House of Representatives might only infuriate the public more if they in fact kept the PDAF under a different label.
“Lalo lang magagalit ang tao (it will fan the people’s outrage),” he said in a phone interview.
Western Samar Rep. Mel Senen Sarmiento, Liberal Party secretary general, agreed that the PDAF should be taken out for good from the national budget.
“It will now be up to the executive department to farm out the PDAF allocation to make sure it would get to its intended beneficiaries,” he said in a separate interview.
Sarmiento, whose party initiated the anti-PDAF statement in the House, said a number of congressmen had expressed “concerns” about what would eventually happen to constituents receiving scholarship and health benefits from the existing pork barrel system.
“Right now, the consensus is to abolish PDAF,” he said. “It’s OK. I’ll be very happy to let go [of my allocation] so long as the needs of our poor people, especially those from the provinces, will be addressed.”
Sarmiento cited instances when indigent patients from the provinces complained about not being accommodated in certain hospitals in Metro Manila.
He said the move to abolish the PDAF should not mean that existing scholars would no longer enjoy their educational benefits.
“They should not become collateral damage just because of this Janet Napoles issue,” he said, referring to the detained businesswoman, the alleged brains behind the P10-billion pork barrel scam.
Puno said majority of the NUP’s 31 members in the House attended its “consultation” meeting Wednesday afternoon to discuss the proposed majority statement calling for the abolition of the PDAF.
The statement asks the committee on appropriations to remove the P25-billion PDAF allocation in the proposed P2.268-trillion national budget for next year.
Puno said a number of his colleagues raised “some issues” such as the fate of scholarship and medical assistance programs currently funded under PDAF.
“We will now leave it to the executive branch, to the line agencies to handle,” he said. “We’ll give it a try.”