‘Pork’ mess blamed for minority no-show in budget hearing for CCT program

Sen. Jinggoy Estrada (left) and Senate Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile: No-shows

MANILA, Philippines—After promising before the start of the 16th Congress to scrutinize the budget for the multibillion-peso conditional cash transfer (CCT) program for the country’s poor, the Senate minority was almost a no-show in Wednesday’s hearing of the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s (DSWD) P79-billion budget for 2014.

Sen. JV Ejercito acknowledged that the controversies that hounded two of the opposition’s senior senators—Senate Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile and Sen. Jinggoy Estrada—could have affected the minority’s participation in the budget hearings.

Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto, chair of the subcommittee that heard the DSWD budget, and Ejercito were the only senators present when the budget of DSWD was endorsed for plenary deliberation.

“Any one facing controversies and problems would be affected. As I see it, the minority has been debilitated from the beginning,” Ejercito told reporters.

“We couldn’t function as a minority to scrutinize the budget of the different departments precisely because of the problem,” Ejercito added.

Enrile and Estrada have been charged with plunder before the Ombudsman in connection with their alleged role in the P10-billion pork barrel funds scam.

Ejercito said he understands that the leaders of the minority needed to attend to their legal problems.

The Aquino administration’s CCT program that has been criticized by the opposition as a potential political tool was allocated P62 billion of the DSWD budget for 2014.

“I asked the important questions about the CCT because of the huge percentage increases annually.  The department, nonetheless, managed to answer the questions well,” Ejercito said.

Under the CCT program, poor families receive financial assistance in exchange for, among others, their chilren going to school and mothers and children availing of government health services.