Senate President Franklin Drilon PRIB FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — Given the wide devastation wrought by “supertyphoon Yolanda” (international name Haiyan) in central Philippines, the Senate leadership advised President Benigno Aquino III anew, on Sunday, to tap the senators’ remaining pork barrel in 2013 for post-calamity needs.
The Senate in late October adopted Resolution No. 14 waiving the senators’ remaining priority development assistance fund (PDAF) and expressing its sense for the President to use the savings created by this.
Some P12.27-billion in Congress PDAF, including the Senate’s P2.4 billion, has not been released this year, officials said.
“Yes it was suggested to the President that it can be realigned to the calamity fund. It’s there for him to avail. Whether or not he avails of it is a matter addressed to his discretion,’’ Senate President Franklin Drilon said by phone.
“Our view is he can use it. He might take a very conservative approach and not touch it, but in our view it can be done. It’s up to him to decide,’’ he added.
The President, who has drawn flak over his purported “pork barrel’’ in the budget, has neither commented nor acted on the Senate resolution.
The supertyphoon cut a wide swath of destruction across several provinces in central Philippines, and left hundreds of people dead especially in seaside villages.
Officials admitted that the President’s calamity and contingency funds have dwindled to P1 billion, while the social fund stood at P6 billion.
Even so, President Aquino said the government has set aside P16 billion in savings to mount relief operations in the aftermath of Yolanda.
Sen. Vicente Sotto III agreed with Drilon, and expressed hope that the President would heed the Senate resolution.
Sotto ruled out the need to amend the resolution since it had a “catch-all provision that includes all calamities.’’
Apart from the resolution, Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV said senators could introduce amendments to the proposed P2.268-trillion 2014 budget “to allocate more funds’’ to disaster-stricken areas.
At the same time, Trillanes challenged his colleagues to realign their P200-million PDAF each to rehabilitation and social services, instead of totally deleting it from the budget.
He said they could be “more productive’’ if they do this.
“There’s nothing noble about deleting it from the budget. It just shows that they are overly sensitive to media pressure and totally insensitive to the needs of the poor and the marginalized sectors,’’ he said in a text message.
Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano is pushing for the realignment of the P4.8-billion Senate PDAF in 2014 to the calamity fund given the government’s dwindling calamity fund.
“Let’s put it where the people can use it, but without the discretion of lawmakers,’’ he said last Friday. “We have to find the moral courage to totally abolish pork. But having said that, we should also have the moral courage to appropriate money and use it properly.’’
He said that the government earmarked P7.5 billion in calamity fund for 2013, and yet the annual damage caused by an average of 20 cyclones swirling into the country usually reached P20 billion.
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