ARMM execs want pork back in infra budget

THE ARMM governor is against pork in the regional budget.

COTABATO CITY—Amid the controversy hounding the national pork barrel system, members of the Regional Legislative Assembly of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) want funds for their pet projects restored in the region’s infrastructure budget next year.

Unlike the national government, which lumps all appropriation in one budget law, the ARMM’s law-making body passes two laws on the use of its financial resources—one for infrastructure and another for program utilization of local funds from local tax collections.

Assembly Speaker Ronny Sinsuat on Friday said that assemblymen representing the region’s eight legislative districts even offered to sponsor bills that would bring back the pork barrel fund for Gov. Mujiv Hataman if only to restore their district allocations, known as the District Impact Project (DIP) fund.

Sinsuat said his fellow regional lawmakers sought his help to convince Hataman about their districts’ need for the regional equivalent of the pork barrel fund. This, Sinsuat quoted lawmakers as saying, would help propel development efforts for constituents impoverished by cycles of manmade and natural calamities.

Hataman abolished the DIP fund in 2011, along with his office’s Regional Impact Project (RIP) fund in the wake of discoveries one after another of ghost projects  all over the region.

There were also reports at that time that the RIP and DIP funds had become the milking cow for many regional officials.

Aside from the two funds, Hataman had also stricken off the Provincial Impact Project (PIP) fund of the region’s five governors from the annual infrastructure budget.

Reached for comment on Sinsuat’s statements, Hataman said he could always veto provisions in the proposed ARMM Infrastructure Budget Act of 2014 if it contained RIP, DIP and PIP funds.

He said, though, that he was in constant dialogue with legislators so there might be no need for a veto anymore.

“There should be no collision here between the executive and the legislative branches of the ARMM government,” Hataman said.

In previous assemblies, the division of the fund for pet projects in the annual infrastructure budget had been 30-percent RIP, 40-percent PIP and 30-percent DIP.

But even if the figures changed, lawmakers said, what was important was for them to have pet projects.

In the ARMM, they would rather call it “goat or lamb barrel” since Muslims do not eat pork.

“We do not need pork,” said Zia ul-Haq Adiong, Lanao Sur assemblyman. “What our constituents need is the assurance that they, through us their representatives, would have participation in determining which projects can best help alleviate poverty in their communities,” he said.