Palace using ‘hidden pork’ to fund Charter change, militant lawmaker says

ACT Teachers Representative Antonio Tinio. Photo from congress.gov.ph

MANILA, Philippines—Still going up against the tide of the administration, a militant partylist representative said that Malacañang is using “hidden” Priority Development Assistance Fund to hasten the Charter change process.

ACT-Teachers Representative Antonio Tinio claimed that President Benigno Aquino III and his administration would rely on the PDAF to amend the 1987 Philippine Constitution.

“The committee approval of the Cha-cha resolution after only a few meetings is not surprising,” Tinio said in a statement Tuesday.

“No doubt, Malacañang has been using its wide arsenal of congressional and presidential pork to grease the approval despite heavy substantive and procedural objections to it.”

Tinio said that P20.8 -billion worth of “House pork” was included into the 2014 budgets of six line agencies, and another P1.8 billion in “Senate pork.”

“In sustaining the Congressional pork barrel through hidden or informal, Malacañang is violating the law and deceiving the public,” said Tinio who stressed that the Supreme Court already deemed the PDAF as illegal.

“They can only persist because of the conscious and wilful participation of the President and his Cabinet.”

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