Erice slams ‘latest UNA clown,’ petition to nullify proposed 2015 budget

By: Aries Joseph Hegina - 9 years ago

Caloocan Rep. Edgar Erice. FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—An executive of the Liberal Party (LP) blasted former Technical Education and Skills Development (Tesda) chief Augusto “Buboy” Syjuco Jr. on Tuesday for filing a petition before the Supreme Court seeking to rule the 2015 proposed national budget as unconstitutional.

In a statement, Caloocan representative Edgar “Egay” Erice said that Syjuco’s petition before the High Court is a “dangerous and self-indulgent ploy” to derail the good governance agenda of the Aquino administration.

“Is he looking to exactly delay the enactment of the annual budget and cause monumental problems for government agencies?” Erice said.

Erice then hit Syjuco, a former Iloilo representative tagging him as the “genuine pork barrel king” after he and his wife Judy Syjuco, also an ex-congressman of Iloilo, allegedly coursed priority development assistance fund (PDAF) to bogus nongovernment organizations for Tesda programs in 2006.

“Unlike now, he had absolutely no qualms about the PDAF when he was still a congressman, or when he was head of the Tesda. In fact, he used to love PDAF so much, he was putting it in his pockets,” the lawmaker said.

The lawmaker added that for employing a familiar modus operandi, “Syjuco is a genuine “pork-barrel king” – a pioneer of the methods Janet Napoles and her co-conspirators used for their crimes.”

Syjuco, who is currently out on bail, is facing trial for allegedly misusing P60 million for Tesda’s scholarship programs.

Erice said that Syjuco, who ran for representative of the 2nd district of Iloilo in the 2013 polls under the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA), is the opposition party’s new “clown.”

“Syjuco is the latest clown unleashed by the UNA and Vice President [Jejomar] Binay,”

“We can expect to see more of him in the following days. After all, he and his UNA backers will tell any lie and spread any rumor against the President and his allies, just to veer public anger away from the controversies surrounding the Vice President,” Erice added.

In a 15-page petition for cetriorari, Syjuco said that the 2015 national budget contained “lump sum” allocation for Aquino’s special purpose funds amounting to P501.67 billion.