Who got how much? DBM urged to open record

TELLING IT LIKE IT IS Members of the militant group Abolish Pork Movement demonstrate their disgust at the House of Representatives during Friday’s second reading of the 2014 budget. MARIANNE BERMUDEZ

Two senators would like the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to lay bare the records on the P50 billion in extra pork that Sen. Jinggoy Estrada said Malacañang had granted to the senators after they voted to convict impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona last year.

The people have a right to know where the funds went, if indeed they were allocated to the senators, and if the lawmakers had availed themselves of the P50 million for their projects, said Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III.

“If they (the DBM) post our PDAF [Priority Development Assistance Fund releases] online, they can treat that P50 million similarly,” Pimentel, the chair of the Senate justice committee, said in a telephone interview.

Budget Secretary Florencio Abad suddenly made himself scarce on Friday, refusing to receive or return calls.

For the second straight day, Palace spokespersons insisted that there was no such thing despite an admission from Senate President Franklin Drilon himself that P50 million in PDAF were released to the senators.

In separate interviews, deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte, Communications Secretary Ricky Carandang and Abad denied ever bribing senators to impeach Corona, an ally of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

But at a briefing in the Palace on Friday, Valte confirmed the release of pork barrel allocations to senators “sometime in October 2012,” about five months after the impeachment trial.

‘Regular’ fund releases

But she said these were “regular fund releases in favor of the Senate by way of their PDAF.”

But it’s not true that “there was a release for the specific purpose of bribing, of giving an incentive or a reward,” she said.

Carandang said the DBM did not release any pork during the impeachment. Now, several months after the impeachment, when it was back to the normal course of business, there were PDAF releases. But the PDAF releases were both for senators who voted to convict and to acquit Corona. The records will bear that out,” he said.

Neither Valte nor Carandang could quote a specific amount of PDAF actually released to individual senators, but asked the media to seek a clarification from Abad.

Valte said the issue should be clarified by the senators themselves.

Media could pursue issue

Pimentel said the media could  pursue the issue of the P50-million alleged post-impeachment payoff through the little-known Senate office that Estrada had mentioned in his privilege speech on Wednesday, the Legislative Budget and Research Monitoring Office headed by Director Yolanda Doblon.

Estrada had challenged Doblon to produce the records of the pork-barrel fund entitlements allegedly given to the senators by Malacañang.

“In the records of Doblon, you can see the date when the requests were made. She would be holding letters from the senators totalling P50 million,” Pimentel said.

“Those who availed of the P50 million, most likely they would have letters with Doblon,” Pimentel said, as they would have identified the projects to be funded by the additional pork.

Pimentel said the documents must also include the date of the letter memorandum informing the senators of the additional funds for projects and the special allotment release orders from the DBM.

Pimentel said he could not recall if he actually received such an entitlement, “but if there really is such, you can ask Doblon.”

“The media can pursue that.  Get the list and publish it. Those are public funds, if ever P50 million in additional funds were released,” Pimentel said.

Look at records

Majority Leader Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano said it would have been wrong if pork barrel funds were released to the senators in connection with their role as magistrates in the impeachment court.

“Now, if the pork barrel had a hand [in the impeachment trial], this is bad,” he said.

Cayetano claimed that his affirmative vote to convict Corona wasn’t influenced by any monetary consideration.

“Look at the records.  When was it released, to whom it was released, and whether it is true that it was related to the impeachment … Whether it was used [to cast influence] on the Senate, that has to be looked at,” he said.

Pimentel also denied the insinuation from Estrada that the Aquino administration had used pork barrel funds to influence lawmakers to vote for the President’s priority measures.

Wrong in innuendo

“When I was against RH [the reproductive health law] and when I was prosin tax, nothing changed.  I was not deprived of anything. I was not offered anything,” Pimentel said.

Pimentel said Estrada was correct as regards the timeline of the P50-million additional PDAF—that it came after Corona’s conviction.

“He was just wrong in the innuendo that it influenced the [impeachment] vote,” he said. With Michael Lim Ubac

RELATED STORIES:

Guingona also admits accepting P50M

Drilon confirms P50M pork barrel

Janet Napoles and the pork barrel scam