Lacson, Drilon, 3 peers reject pork-ridden spending measure
Senators opposing the P3.8-trillion national budget allegedly stuffed with pork on Friday refused to ratify the unified Senate-House committee report that ended the two-month impasse over the passage of President Duterte’s spending program for 2019.
Voting 15-5, the Senate adopted the committee report prepared by Sen. Loren Legarda and Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr. but not without firm opposition from Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon and Sen. Panfilo Lacson.
Senators Risa Hontiveros, Bam Aquino and Francis Pangilinan also voted against the report.
According to Drilon, adding his name to the committee report was akin to “signing a blank check,” pointing out that they were not given ample time to review its contents.
He also rejected Andaya’s claim that each of the 23 senators would receive at least P3 billion in government projects, which the House appropriations committee chair admitted may be regarded as pork.
“The unsubstantiated and unfair claims regarding pork barrel allocations make each member of the Senate a suspect,” he lamented.
Speaking with Inquirer editors and reporters on Wednesday night, Andaya said he and Legarda agreed to have a “funding pool” amounting to P75 billion from which the senators and House members could source the funds for their chosen projects.
He said P70 billion of the amount would go to the senators, giving each of them some P3 billion at their disposal.
Andaya said the remaining P5 billion would be “equitably shared” by 292 House members, who were already assured of P160 million each for their legislative district.
To dispel insinuations that the senators will get pork barrel funds, which the Supreme Court had already declared illegal, Drilon urged his colleagues to publicly disclose the budget amendments they had proposed.
“In the spirit of transparency and to erase the cloud of doubt hanging over the Senate, I appeal to the members of this chamber to make a similar disclosure,” he said.
“It is unfortunate that the Senate did not have sufficient time to review the general appropriations bill submitted by the House of Representatives and the reconciled version of the conference committee,” Drilon said.
The veteran legislator also dismissed speculations that his home province of Iloilo was set to receive more than P3 billion in state funds.
Not convinced
“In my 20 years in the Senate, I have made it a personal advocacy to scrutinize the national budget, which is the most important piece of legislation that goes through the Congress,” he said.
Drilon maintained that he was “not convinced” that the budget submitted by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to Congress was “in sync with what this government wants to accomplish.”
Lacson, who had stood against the graft-laden pork barrel system, reiterated that this year’s budget was “pork-ridden, cholesterol-rich,” with the bulk of the pork money stashed in the Department of Public Works and Highways.
“Today, pork barrel presents itself as an evil reincarnate, taunting and tempting us, hiding in the shroud of feigned public service,” Lacson said in a privilege speech.
“What is most appalling on this tale of horror was the allocation for farm-to-market road projects that significantly bloated from the NEP (National Expenditure Program) to the House version,” he said.
He disclosed that the legislative district of Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in Pampanga was among the biggest recipients of farm-to-market road projects, regarded as a source of kickbacks for corrupt officials.
From just P35 million in the original NEP submitted by the DBM, he said the Senate-House conference committee approved a P606-million budget for farm-to-market roads in Arroyo’s district.
There was “no sense of propriety in partaking in unconstitutional ‘pork’ allocations,” Lacson maintained, reiterating that the Supreme Court had already outlawed the lump sump allocations for legislators.
“What is worse than this is taking more slabs of ‘pork’ by merit of power. Humor me, the much publicized rift among the members of the House of Representatives unlikely grew from ‘inequitable’ pork allocations perpetrated by those in the higher ranks,” he said.
Under Arroyo, he said, the lower chamber “shuffled” several items in the original budget proposal to allot P6.1 billion to new farm-to-market road projects.
“Needless to say, these excessive reallocation and insertions are mere transfer of ‘farm-to-pocket roads’ from some congressmen’s pockets to the others,” he said, adding:
“To sum it up in one phrase: from farm-to-market, to farm-to-pocket, to pocket-to-pocket.”
