QC ‘pork’ questioned; Mayor Bautista explains

Quezon City Mayor Herbert Bautista

MANILA, Philippines–Catching car theft gangs and guarding Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

These were the top-of-mind items cited by Quezon City Mayor Herbert Bautista to explain how his local government had been using discretionary and intelligence funds, which are now the subject of a petition in the Supreme Court questioning what critics called the “local pork barrel.”

“It’s okay, maybe they (petitioners) want to find out through the Supreme Court how the funds of the city government are being used,” Bautista said in an interview Wednesday. “It’s open to the public.”

Bautista, Vice Mayor Josefina Belmonte (representing the city council) and Budget Secretary Florencio Abad were named respondents in a petition for certiorari and prohibition filed June 20 by three city residents. The council formally “noted” the petition in a session on Monday.

Past poll candidates

The petitioners were Johnny Chang, who lost twice to Bautista in the 2010 and 2013 elections; Rodrigo Kapunan, a newspaper columnist who ran for vice mayor in 2010; and Myrleon Peralta, a community leader who sought a House seat in 2010 and a city council seat in 2013.

They asked the high court to issue a preliminary injunction preventing the use of discretionary funds, to stop its allotment in the future and to restrain the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) from approving such allocations.

They went to the Supreme Court seven months after it declared unconstitutional the congressional pork barrel also known as Priority Development Assistance Fund.

The petitioners noted that the DBM, which reviews the budget of local governments in Metro Manila, had long been tolerating lump sum, discretionary appropriations. The petitioners added that the practice had become widespread among local governments across the country.

“This becomes a national policy because the DBM keeps on approving it,” Chang said in an interview. “I was shocked when I got hold of the file of the city budget. So I stopped to study. This has long been happening but no one is complaining.”

The petition maintained that “in the midst of the troubling congressional and executive pork barrel funds controversy, the government is duty-bound to prevent the occurrence of the same in any form.”

“All kinds of lump sum, discretionary appropriations for local chief executives must perforce be avoided, if not dismantled,” it stressed.

In the petition, Chang, Kapunan and Peralta claimed that out of the P13.47-billion budget of the Quezon City government for 2014, the lump sum appropriation amounted to P2 billion, up from the 2013 level of P1.97 billion.

Buatista, however, disputed the figure cited in the petition, saying it could not possibly be P2 billion.

‘Overly broad’ purposes

The Quezon City budget, as cited in the petition, put the lump sum for 2014 at P650 million. The petitioners, however, counted among the questionable funds those earmarked for

Vice Mayor Josefina Belmonte

confidential, intelligence, extraordinary and miscellaneous expenses, “other personnel benefits,” “other maintenance and operating expenses,” and local risk reduction and management fund.

They said these items had “overly broad” purposes which lack basic details.

As to intelligence and confidential funds, these items escape usual audit procedures, thus “opening the floodgates for misuse,” they added.

“The principle of checks and balances was swept under the rug by the city council in giving the mayor unfettered discretion over the lump sum funds,” they stressed.

But Bautista explained that intelligence funds were mandatory and could not be released without an approved operational plan. “In fact, we were able to neutralize a lot of carnapping gangs (using those funds),” he said.

For GMA guards

The “allowances” of policemen who secure former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who is now in hospital detention on plunder charges being heard by the Sandiganbayan antigraft court, were covered by extraordinary expenses, he said.

And “if there are limits to the disaster risk reduction funds, you can get the money from there (extraordinary expenses),” he said.

As to how the P650-million lump sum appropriation listed under the Office of the Mayor had been used, Bautista said: “I don’t know. You’d have to ask the budget department.”

“Whatever are the observations of the Commission on Audit, we comply with it,” he said.

Bautista said his office had yet to receive an order from the Supreme Court directing it to answer the petition.