El Niño funds could be used in corruption, says Colmenares

MANILA, Philippines—As the hotter and drier days that the El Niño phenomenon would bring in, one militant lawmaker said the funds that would be used to alleviate the situation would just wet the pockets of “unscrupulous” personalities.

Bayan Muna Representative Neri Colmenares said in a statement that with the funds reaching up to P15 million for the municipalities and P50 million for the cities, the huge sums of money could end up in the hands of politicians gearing up for the 2016 elections.

“What we fear now is that the supposed budget allotted for it now by the Aquino administration… may be too late and can be used as a milking cow of unscrupulous politicians preparing for the 2016 elections,” Colmenares said Tuesday.

Colmenares added the source of the fund, the Grassroots Participatory Budgeting Process, “is questionable” as it was not part of the General Appropriations Act of 2014.

Also, the militant lawmaker said that the Aquino administration could have prepared earlier for the possible consequences of the weather phenomenon as it is “quasi-seasonal” in nature and could be predicted.

“When the first forecast for El Niño surfaced plans for irrigation, crop planting decisions, seed selection, fertilizer application in agriculture should have already been formulated to mitigate the impact of the drought,” Colmenares said.

“We hope that the El Niño phenomenon and our farmers would not be used as a cover for another Disbursement Acceleration Program in the making.”

Colmenares said the Aquino administration “should learn” from previous incidents involving the weather and climate change.

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