Senator Loren Legarda. FILE PHOTO
The P11 billion allotted for infrastructure projects next year had nothing to do with the opposition, Senator Loren Legarda said on Thursday.
Quoting unnamed sources, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported that some opposition lawmakers had been deprived of their infrastructure funding amounting to P11 billion. The amount, the report said, was said to have been realigned at the bicameral conference committee.
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But Legarda, chair of the Senate committee on finance, explained that P5 billion of the amount was allotted for infrastructures in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), which she said must be approved first by the regional assembly before it could be implemented.
The remaining P6 billion, she said, was allotted for “urgent local infrastructure projects” to support the “build, build, build” program of the Duterte administration.
Asked if the P11 billion budget was originally intended for opposition lawmakers, Legarda said: “Eleven billion pesos has nothing to do with the (opposition).”
On the issue whether some congressmen were given zero funding for infrastructure projects, the senator referred the matter to her counterpart in the House of Representatives, Davao City Representative Karlo Nograles.
“That’s internal to the House,” Legarda said. /je