House to retain bulk of P450-B special purpose funds in budget

MANILA, Philippines—After its move to “scrap” the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), the House of Representatives is expected to retain the rest of the P450-billion special purpose funds (SPF), a set of lump-sum appropriations described by critics as the presidential pork barrel.

“Yes, all other [items] are very well explained in the budget deliberations,” Rep. Isidro Ungab, chair of the committee on appropriations, told reporters hours before the chamber was to approve the P2.268-trillion 2014 national budget.

“Lump-sum appropriations, we have to retain [them],” Ungab said, citing the need for items such as the calamity and contingency funds.

The P25.2-billion in PDAF is only about 5.5 percent of the much bigger SPF, which forms a fifth of the entire national budget. The SPF includes an “unprogrammed fund” amounting to P139.9 billion, which is bigger by P22 billion compared with the existing allocation.

Also under the SPF is the “budgetary support for government corporations,” which is worth P46.69 billion in the 2014 budget. In the 2002 budget, P4.9 billion was allocated to it, and was gradually increased to P24.2 billion in 2010 and to P44.6 billion this year.

A major amendment in the general appropriations bill was the supposed “removal” of the PDAF, which is worth P25.4 billion. The amount, which includes Vice President Jejomar Binay’s P200-million pork barrel, was distributed to six agencies, with the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) getting 35 percent.

Menu guidelines

Congressmen were given until last Wednesday to submit up to five proposals for infrastructure projects to be implemented by the DPWH.

A copy of the “menu guidelines” showed that representatives were each entitled to P24.5 million in infrastructure projects. But the amount could be spent only on “local roads and bridges, classrooms or academic buildings, multipurpose buildings and water supply systems.”

“Except for project/s listed by [party-list] representatives, no project/s should be identified outside the legislative district of the representatives,” according to the guidelines.

Ungab said most of the House members had submitted their respective proposals in time for the approval of the national budget on second reading. He said a “small committee” would then collate the proposals, to be introduced as amendments, before the budget bill is approved on third and final reading next month.

Besides the DPWH, the following agencies also  get a portion of the P25.4-billion PDAF: Department of Social Welfare and Development, 20 percent; Department of Health and Department of Labor and Employment, 15 percent each; Commission on Higher Education, 10 percent; and  Department of Education, 5 percent.