Sen. Paolo Benigno Aquino IV and Sen. Grace Poe INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines—Even President Benigno Aquino III’s cousin, neophyte Sen. Paolo Benigno Aquino IV, is officially waiving his priority development assistance fund (PDAF) or “pork barrel” in 2014 despite apparent mixed signals from Malacañang.
The senator was among the latest batch of senators, including fellow neophyte Sen. Grace Poe, Aquilino Pimentel III and Vicente Sotto III, who asked the finance committee to deduct their respective PDAF share from the 2014 budget.
“This is to signify that my office shall relinquish and waive the allocated priority development assistance fund, without any reservations,” Aquino wrote Sen. Francis Escudero, chair of the finance committee, on Nov. 5.
The youngest senator, however, admitted that he had his own personal reasons for waiving his PDAF in his first year in the Senate. He said the PDAF system was “flawed.”
Poe, who placed No. 1 in the 2013 midterm senatorial elections, was also unequivocal in waiving her PDAF in 2014.
“May I formally advise you of my decision to submit and recommend an amendment to the House Bill No. 2630 to be reflected in the appropriate committee report to effect the deletion of the entire aggregate amount of P200 million for my office,” she said in a Nov. 7 letter to Escudero.
Like Aquino, Poe said her PDAF allocation should be deducted from the 2014 budget.
Pimentel, for his part, informed Escudero on Nov. 5 that he was waiving his P200-million PDAF allocation for 2014, as well as the balance of P190,000 million in his 2013 PDAF allocation.
Sotto also wrote Escudero that he was forgoing his PDAF “for the remaining years of my term as a senator of the Republic.”
He was the first among the six-member minority bloc to formally renounce his PDAF. The bloc, also composed of Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada, Joseph Victor Ejercito, Nancy Binay and Gregorio Honasan III, had manifested support for the abolition of PDAF.
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