Finance subcommittee chair Sen. Sergio Osmeña III: Reminded of pork barrel scam. FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines—Revelations of grand-scale malfeasance in government have made everyone wary of fiscal matters involving the people’s money.
A Senate finance subcommittee last week deferred approval of the Department of Trade and Industry’s relatively small P3.9-billion budget for 2014 after finding more than half-a-billion pesos had been set aside for unspecified antipoverty programs in local government units.
The allocation of P548 million in the proposed DTI budget for its Priority Poverty Reduction Project (PPRP) apparently raised an alarm with finance subcommittee chair Sen. Sergio Osmeña III who said he was reminded of the P10-billion pork barrel scam allegedly perpetrated by Janet Lim-Napoles and her cohorts in government.
“Parang Napoles lahat ito, ganyan ang nangyari [This is just like Napoles, this is what happened],” Osmeña said to Trade Secretary Gregory Domingo and other DTI officials during the Senate budget hearing last week.
“We don’t know we’re appropriating P548 million and we don’t know how it came about. We don’t know to whom it’s going, we don’t know who’s going to spend it. We don’t know who is going to implement it. You can’t explain it to us and it is under your budget,” Osmeña said.
Under the PPRP, provinces and municipalities are allotted different amounts but the items to be funded have yet to be finalized. A trade department official said it was the LGUs that proposed projects to the regional poverty reduction committees.
During a break in the hearing, Domingo promised to submit to the committee certain proposals regarding the use of the P548 million.
Doesn’t have to be exact
“It doesn’t have to be exact. Even the concepts will do. But we are not motivated to approve that P548-million proposal,” Osmeña told him.
The senator said he would schedule another hearing on the DTI budget in connection with the antipoverty programs for the LGUs.
“The budget of the DTI is really too small—it’s only P3.9 billion—nobody’s going to question that. But there’s a new item there for P548 million to promote antipoverty programs in every town,” Osmeña told reporters after the hearing.
“I questioned this because I don’t understand how this will be implemented if you’re just going to give P1 million or P2 million to every municipality. If that’s what they want, we can just give it to the Department of the Interior and Local Government. So we have to refine that concept,” he said.
Napoles, several lawmakers and government officials have been charged with plunder and other related charges in the Ombudsman for the alleged scam that saw some P10 billion of the legislative Priority Development Assistance Fund, or pork barrel, end up in their hands.
Under the scam, pork barrel funds earmarked for livelihood programs were channeled to Napoles’ fake NGOs and from there were deposited into her bank accounts.
The lawmakers may have been given their share of the kickback earlier by Napoles, who then proceeded to pay off her other coconspirators in congressional and other government offices.
Regarding the DTI budget, Osmeña nonetheless said after the hearing that he was “encouraged” by the DTI’s “one town, one project” program.
“And it’s going to be expanded to a clustering, so it will be several towns [having] one project. Or several towns, two projects,” Osmeña said.
“[This clustering of towns for a program] has been an immensely successful concept in many countries, particularly Japan,” he added.