Mar Roxas tangles with lawmaker over hidden pork
Interior Secretary Mar Roxas: Propaganda of Congressman Tinio. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines–Interior Secretary Mar Roxas on Tuesday tussled with a militant lawmaker during the budget deliberations in the House of Representatives after the latter described the multibillion-peso Grassroots Participatory Budgeting Program (GPBP) fund a “presidentiable pork barrel.”
Alliance of Concerned Teachers Rep. Antonio Tinio insinuated that Roxas, the presumptive standard-bearer of the administration party in 2016, would control over P5 billion in funds for GPBP projects next year arising from a 10-fold increase in his agency’s share of the fund.
“If the DAP [Disbursement Acceleration Program] is considered the presidential pork barrel, I will call this [GPBP] the presidentiable pork barrel,” Tinio said.
Chosen by local gov’ts
To which a visibly irked Roxas retorted, addressing the House appropriations committee chair: “Mr. Chair, let me express my gratitude for the propaganda of Congressman Tinio.”
Roxas dared Tinio to identify items in the GPBP budget the congressman would like stricken off, saying that it was the local government units (LGUs) that chose such projects and that the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) was tasked only with overseeing their implementation.
DILG’s P105.7B
“I challenge Congressman Tinio. If you don’t agree with these projects, you choose which ones should be excluded. Because each town in the Philippines chose which projects to prioritize, not us. We didn’t choose; we didn’t contract,” he said.
“We are to help the process … to implement these projects,” he said.
Roxas appeared before the appropriations committee to present the DILG’s proposed P105.7-billion budget for 2015, higher by 4.2 percent from its current P101.5 billion (excluding its attached agencies).
Tinio asked Roxas to justify the proposed 56-percent increase in the budget of the Office of the Secretary due to the allocation of P5.665 billion for “Provision for Potable Water Supply and Other Projects” under the GPBP.
The lawmaker noted that this represented an increase of 10 times the DILG’s share of the GPBP in this year’s budget of over P500 million.
A total of P20.899 billion is proposed to be appropriated for the program in 2015, up from P20 billion this year.
GPBP, formerly known as bottom-up budgeting, is a participative approach instituted by the budget department in 2013 in which the executive branch identifies “various programs and projects addressing the development needs of the poorest cities and municipalities in the country.”
Under the original GPBP, select LGUs are asked to come up with a “wish list” amounting to P15 million for towns and P50 million for cities of projects they want to be funded by the national government, through consultations with local nongovernment organizations.
Gabriela Rep. Luz Ilagan asked Roxas to explain why several items in the GPBP fund were listed only as “various DILG projects” or “various projects.”
P12M/town, P30M/city
Roxas explained that the coverage of the program for 2015 would cover all cities and municipalities, thus their share of the GPBP fund would shrink to P30 million for cities and P12 million for municipalities.
But in the budget preparations, the wish lists of LGUs under the program still did not reflect the reduction in their GPBP shares.
In the case of municipalities, “what the DILG did was that for each P15 million worth of projects, we OKd the P10 million, and then returned the P5 million [wish list] to the LGUs, and told them to choose their priority projects worth only P2 million,” Roxas said.
“This is so we won’t go back to ground zero,” he said.
Roxas said this was the explanation behind some entries for the GPBP indicating only “various DILG projects” or “various projects,” since several municipalities still had not submitted their wish list for the P2 million remaining GPBP fund out of their P12-million share.
“This is not lump sum. This is not discretionary,” he said.
Expense class
Tinio also asked Roxas why the GPBP fund was incorporated in the maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE) of the DILG.
Eastern Samar Rep. Ben Evardone, who was presiding over the committee hearing as vice chair, answered on Roxas’ behalf, saying: “It’s an expense class in MOOE because it’s not the DILG that will implement the project. It will be in the form of a financial assistance to the LGUs’ beneficiaries of the various projects.”
Tinio said: “Mr. Chair, I am satisfied with the explanation of the chairman. The reason the P5 billion is in the MOOE is because it’s not the DILG that will implement but the LGU. The only role of the Office of the Secretary of the DILG is to release the fund to the LGU. I understand why that is so.”
Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Roxas said he was not slighted by Tinio’s questions: “Not really. It’s everyone’s right to ask questions. I just wanted to correct the premises of some of the questions.”
