Makabayan bloc: No infra projects, no taker of any ‘pork’

The Makabayan bloc of left-wing party-list lawmakers sought to separate itself from the list of 24 mostly opposition legislators, who were punished by the House leadership by scrapping infrastructure projects intended for their districts or constituencies in the 2018 budget.

Bayan Muna Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate clarified that no budget for infrastructure projects was removed from his office since “I did not propose any project to any department in the first place.”

“Since my first term in Congress in 2013 and until now I did not partake of any pork barrel type congressional allocation in pursuance of our advocacy against patronage politics and the pork barrel system,” he said in a statement.

The sentiment was echoed by his colleague, ACT Rep. Antonio Tinio.

“Consistent with our stand against the pork barrel system, we have no infrastructure projects. We submitted no proposals for infrastructure projects. As far as we’re concerned, there’s nothing to ‘zero’,” he said.

“Our electoral success proves that our constituents vote for us on the strength of our advocacies, not patronage,” Tinio said.

Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, in a statement on Thursday, confirmed the Makabayan lawmakers’ contention that they had “not accessed funds from Congress at all.”

But he added: “We do not know where they get funds for projects for their constituents. All we know is that the communist rebels with whom they have an ideological and political affinity impose what’s known as ‘revolutionary taxation’ in areas where they operate.”

“According to the military, in southern Mindanao alone, the NPA (New People’s Army) collects close to P500 million yearly in revolutionary taxes. This is plain and simple extortion. We have not heard from the Makabayan bloc a clear and unequivocal condemnation of revolutionary taxation, leading us to suspect that they either directly or indirectly benefit from it,” Alvarez said.

The Speaker issued the statement after the Makabayan lawmakers criticized the House leadership’s move to surreptitiously delete items from the districts or party-list constituencies of mostly opposition House members.

This, they said, showed that the “pork barrel system” remained in place.

“These reports apparently indicate that the pork barrel system is still alive and the loopholes in the 2013 Supreme Court decision on PDAF (Priority Development Assistance Fund) are being used to make this porky habit still thrive in our political system,” Zarate said.

That Supreme Court ruling struck down the PDAF system of allowing lawmakers to earmark projects for lump sum items after the budget had already been passed into law.

“Only the style and name have changed but it is still the old patronage-driven pork barrel system,” Zarate said.

Tinio said the local infrastructure funds, which were under the name of the congressional district and not individual legislators, was a type of “hidden pork barrel.”

In response, Majority Leader Rodolfo Fariñas said there was no such thing.

In a message to reporters, he noted the absence of lump sum items in the General Appropriations Act of 2018 that could be tapped by any member of Congress after the enactment of the budget.

“The pork barrel system has been defined as lump sums in the budget where the legislator is given the power of POST ENACTMENT IDENTIFICATION of projects. The key words are ‘lump sums’ and ‘post enactment identification’,” Fariñas said.

“It means that there is simply a lump sum allocated and the legislator takes part in the execution of the budget after (post) its enactment by identifying the projects for which such lump sum shall be used,” he said.

“There is no such thing in the GAA now,” the House leader said.               /kga