Palace won’t easily give up P5-B fund

Malacañang is not giving up its P5-billion “pork barrel” in the proposed 2012 national budget without a fight.

Budget Secretary Florencio Abad Jr. met with Sen. Franklin Drilon, chair of the Senate committee on finance, to come up with a compromise on the controversial Miscellaneous Personnel Benefits Fund (MPBF).

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile had earlier defended the Senate’s decision to slash P5 billion from the P101-billion total MPBF, which he described as a form of “pork barrel.”

While agreeing to respect the “fiscal autonomy” of constitutional bodies, Abad and Drilon decided to require them to submit a quarterly report on how they spent their respective allocations for unfilled positions.

Personnel services

The amount in question totals P4.97 billion, representing the personnel services funds of the judiciary, Commission on Elections, Commission on Human Rights, Commission on Audit, Civil Service Commission and Office of the Ombudsman.

Also included are allocations for career positions in both chambers of Congress.

“We will respect the fiscal autonomy of constitutional bodies, which means that (the fund) will be put under the budget of the constitutional bodies,” Drilon told the Inquirer.

“But we will require the reporting of its usage. We will ask for regular quarterly reporting on the disbursement of these funds pertaining to unfilled positions.”

Asked if the quarterly reports would be tantamount to putting a condition on the allocation, he said: “It’s not a condition. It’s a requirement for transparency.”

Drilon argued that constitutional bodies still had “the power to realign their respective budgets in accordance with the law.”

Answer to taxpayers

But should they fail to comply with the reporting requirement, the constitutional bodies would “have to answer to the taxpayers,” according to the senator.

“That would be an issue that would have to be confronted in the next round of budget hearings next year,” he said.

Despite Drilon’s pronouncement that the Senate would respect the constitutional bodies’ fiscal autonomy, Sen. Joker Arroyo earlier expressed concern on the use of the fund.

Through the MPBF, the Department of Budget and Management would be able to impound the unspent appropriations of constitutional bodies for unfilled career positions and not have to release them until the vacancies were filled, Arroyo said.

No to conditions

“Malacañang cannot put conditions on the budget of constitutional bodies because that’s their budget,” Arroyo told the Inquirer Thursday. “It has no business controlling it.”

It was, for example, tantamount to “hijacking the judiciary fund” for salaries, he added.

Earlier, Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales and the heads of five other constitutional bodies had written the budget secretary, saying: “It is our right and responsibility to assert our fiscal autonomy as envisioned under the Constitution and as enunciated in various jurisprudence on the matter.”

The letter, dated Aug. 15, was also signed by Supreme Court Administrator Jose Midas Marquez and chairpersons Sixto Brillantes of the Comelec, Loreta Ann Rosales of the CHR, Francisco Duque III of the CSC, and Grace Pulido-Tan of COA.