Estradas defend P200-M pork fund

By: TJ Burgonio - 11 years ago

Sen. Jinggoy Estrada and Mayor Joseph Estrada. INQUIRER FILE PHOTOS

Can they help it if the Estradas are simply “smarter”—or more “shameless”—than others?

An unrepentant Sen. Jinggoy Estrada—under fire for assigning P100 million of his pork barrel allotment in the 2014 budget to the city of Manila, of which his father is the mayor—on Friday said the vehicle that he used, Allocation to Local Government Units (ALGU), was in the budget for everyone to see.

The ALGU is a lump-sum item in the budget that can be tapped by the President to aid a province, city or municipality.

“It’s there in the budget. That’s not my creation. Why didn’t they tap it?” he said in a phone interview.

The congressmen who are complaining over the double standard in the handling by the Senate and the House of Representatives of the now outlawed Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) could very well have realigned their own pork to their favored local government units (LGUs) also, he said.

“That’s not my fault. There was nothing unlawful in what I did. It was ratified by both houses. Why should it be seen as being unfair?” Estrada said.

Nothing wrong there

Estrada’s father, deposed president and convicted plunderer Joseph Estrada, who is now the mayor of Manila, sees nothing wrong with his senator son giving his city fully half of his PDAF allocation.

“What’s wrong with that? It wasn’t given to me. I will not benefit from it but the city of Manila,” the senior Estrada told reporters on Friday.

Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV called Jinggoy’s action “shameless” considering that his father was the mayor of Manila.

“He’s the one who’s shameless,” the Manila mayor said of Trillanes. “He’s narrow-minded.”

Smarting at Trillanes’ gibe, Jinggoy on Friday said in Filipino: “He should stop grandstanding.”

Defending his son, the elder Estrada said Jinggoy knew that Manila was “bankrupt,” citing the P3.5-billion budget deficit and P613 million unpaid electricity bills.

“He could have given all of the P200 million but he divided it since he knows Caloocan and the town in Cagayan also need it,” he said.

Asked where the funds would go, the Manila mayor said: “Where it is most needed.”

He said there will be transparency in how the money will be handled as the city council will have to approve the budget allocation.

The only one

The younger Estrada was the only senator to have opted to realign his pork allotment to favored local governments. The P200 million was split between Manila (P100 million), Caloocan City (P50 million) and Lal-lo, Cagayan (P50 million).

Following the Supreme Court’s ruling that the PDAF was unconstitutional and public calls for its abolition in the face of the P10-billion congressional pork barrel scandal, 15 senators—Juan Edgardo Angara, Bam Aquino, Nancy Binay, Franklin Drilon, Juan Ponce Enrile, Francis Escudero, Teofisto Guingona, Gregorio Honasan, Loren Legarda, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Sergio Osmeña III, Grace Poe-Llamanzares, Aquilino Pimentel III, Vicente Sotto III and Cynthia Villar—chose to have their PDAF totaling P3 billion deleted from the 2014 budget.

Five senators—Senators Alan Peter and Pia Cayetano, Ralph Recto, Miriam Defensor-Santiago and Joseph Victor Ejercito—moved to have their allocations earmarked for the calamity fund, while three others—Senators Bong Revilla, Lito Lapid and Antonio Trillanes III had theirs allotted to hospitals, universities, public works projects and in the case of Trillanes to the military and police organizations.

A ruse

House representatives said Estrada’s action was unfair as they would also have wanted to realign their pork to their favored LGUs but were barred from doing so by the House leadership out of respect for the high court decision.

Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab, the House committee on appropriations chair, said the House and the budget department reached a “consensus” on how to redistribute the PDAF in the 2014 budget.

Ungab said the entire PDAF entitlements of the House went to five government departments—the Department of Public Works and Highways, Commission on Higher Education, Department of Health, Department of Social Welfare and Development, and the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority-Department of Labor and Employment.

Caloocan City Rep. Eric Erice said Estrada’s realignment of his P200-million pork to local government units, with P100 million going to the city run by his father, circumvented the Supreme Court decision.

“The problem with Senator Jinggoy’s realignment is besides being a lump sum, the beneficiary is his father’s LGU. So post-enactment intervention cannot be ruled out,” Erice said in a text message.

“It’s nothing but a palusot (ruse) so he can have control of the funds. The justices in their decision were very particular on the issue of post-enactment intervention by legislators,” he said.

The high court ruling declared unconstitutional all provisions of the law that allowed legislators “to wield any form of post-enactment authority” in the implementation of the budget.

The subsidies to LGUs were specifically excised from the list of eligible recipients because of fears that it would mean flouting the high court decision, Erice said.

But Sen. Francis Escudero, the chair of the Senate finance committee, said the senators and representatives could still realign their PDAF to the ALGU without violating the Supreme Court decision.

Escudero said realignment would not be a circumvention because the legislators “still can’t intervene.”

He explained that ALGU was a lump-sum item in the budget that had no specifications and guidelines.

“It’s a facility, it’s a procedure which gives the executive flexibility. If an LGU needs something, (the executive department) can augment the ALGU so they can give money to the LGU,” he said.

In the 2014 budget, the ALGU was classified into Metropolitan Manila Development Authority; special shares of LGUs in the proceeds of national taxes; barangay officials death benefit funds; local government support fund; and special shares of LGUs in the proceeds of fire code fees.

Estrada’s ALGU insertion fell under the local government support fund, which totaled P405 million, including the P200 million that Estrada allotted for the three LGUs. It wasn’t indicated where the balance of P205 million would go.

It will be used to fund the priority projects of the LGUs and will be released in accordance with the guidelines of the Department of Budget and Management. But it is subject to “conditional implementation.”

Power of the purse

Budget Secretary Florencio Abad yesterday maintained that lawmakers had the “power of the purse,” so there was nothing illegal in the last-minute realignment of the pork barrel of nine senators.

“We cannot dictate upon the legislature, especially in their exercise of their power of the purse. The underlying principle is separation of powers,” he said.

Abad, however, clarified that the PDAF allocation was not excised from the national budget.

He explained that the budget that the President had submitted to the House, long before the pork barrel scandal broke and the resulting public outcry, still provided for the PDAF.

“So upon the submission of the [budget] to the House, the disposition of the PDAF was beyond the reach of the executive and had come under the exclusive jurisdiction of the House,” said Abad.

He said this was the same situation faced by the Senate before passing the budget last month. With reports from Gil C. Cabacungan, Erika Sauler and Michael Lim Ubac