House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez has again defended the slashing of fund allocations for the 24 lawmakers who are critical of the Duterte administration.
While he confirmed that there were budget cuts in the House due to politics, Alvarez asserted on Thursday that the funds removed have been re-allocated to free college education and salaries of government security forces.
“I mean what I say, and I am not in the habit of saying one thing and doing another. If there’s money, then I’ll see to it that it would be properly allocated,” Alvarez said in a statement.
“As much as possible, once funding for a project has been approved, then it is good to go. But in extraordinary cases we have to re-allocate funds for other priorities, such as education and the welfare of policemen and soldiers. This is what happened in the 2018 budget,” Alvarez also said.
Alvarez first confirmed with Inquirer that some lawmakers lost their infrastructure funding for being uncooperative with the administration.
“You win some, you lose some. They should understand that you can’t have your cake and eat it too,” Alvarez said last Wednesday.
The opposition lawmakers affected by the budget cut decried the “retaliatory actions” of Alvarez and the House leadership.
Caloocan Rep. Edgar Erice said he would bring to the courts the unfair slashing of the budget, as it would affect millions of his constituents.
“I will fight to the last drop of my blood before the courts and on the streets if necessary to protect the 8 million Filipinos who will be benefitting from the projects, I will tell the Filipino people that he chose to punish the people to make legislators his puppets, and just agree with his whims,” Erice said in a text message to reporters.
“I will tell them how power had gone to the head of the Speaker and I will tell the people that they should consider that (House ways and means committee chairman Karlo Nograles) deprive them of important projects and they should remember him in the 2019 elections,” he added. /kga