Albay solon says PDAF abolition brings government closer to poor (Feature) By Danny O. Calleja LIGAO CITY, Jan. 5 (PNA) – After a couple of minutes waiting for his turn, a middle-aged man in farm clothes anxiously told Albay Rep. Fernando Gonzalez at his district office here Sunday that he needed help for the hospitalization of his badly-ailing son. The congressman readily reached for his notepad, wrote something on the top page and handed it over to the man with an instruction: “bring your son to the nearest government hospital, present this note to the one in-charge and all the medical attention needed will be provided, including medicines without you spending for it.” After the man left gratified with what he got, the congressman explained: “my people in need usually come to me for help and as their representative, I see to it that their needs that should be addressed by agencies are provided. It’s more convenient this time or after the abolition of the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF).” He said these after a quick look back at 2014, the year that marked the historic “death” of the infamous congressional pork barrel known as PDAF and expressing optimism that year 2015 will after all prove further that its abolition is of more good than harm for the people, particularly the poor. Majority members of Congress rallied against the abolition until it was ordered by Pres. Benigno Aquino III following a Supreme Court (SC) declaration in late 2013 that the traditional system of allocating in the yearly national budget minimum lump sums for each representative and senator to use for projects of their choice was “unconstitutional”. “I went against the position of those who opposed the abolition as I knew then that it was already time to kill this scandal-laden system of setting aside discretionary funds, unpopularly called pork barrel, to lawmakers that dates back to 1922, during the American colonial period,” said Gonzalez, who is on his second term as representative of the province’s third district. Before its abolition, every congressman usually received an annual PDAF allocation of Php70 million, while each senator, Php200 million, whose releases were via implementing agencies contrary to public belief that the money were directly released to the lawmakers. This system, however, had been abused as it allowed the participation of legislators not just in the determination of the budget, but also in the execution of projects that oftentimes would be marred with corruptions perpetuated through collusion with friends in the private sector and government agency officials. In abolishing PDAF, Gonzalez said, the Aquino administration has cured the flawed system and replaced it with a new one that actually addresses the needs of the people, particularly the poor instead of loading up the pockets of officials. “So, PDAF is dead and this year, we are assured of a better way which ensures that the public coffers are spent with only the public’s benefit in mind. That way, the government is getting more close to the people even to those who are in the countryside,” he said. The corrected system, according to Gonzalez, has been clearly explained earlier by Pres. Aquino that the supposed PDAF provided to every legislator is now included and noted in the national budget and projects assigned to this fund have been limited in scope, unlike in the past when it could be indiscriminately allotted for projects or programs. For transparency, he said, the list of these projects is uploaded on the DBM website in real time so that the public could review and scrutinize them, and for the bidding stage, all bid notices and awards have been required to be posted on the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement Systems (PhilGEPS). Going back to the poor man who came for help in the medical need of his son, Gonzalez said that “the government hospital which I referred him to will certainly accommodate his patient because they have the fund under this new system, which they cannot hide, given its transparency features”. It is also true with other agencies—Department of Public works and Highways (DPWH) for national-funded infrastructure needs of local government units and barangays; Department of Education (DepEd) for matters that involve educational reliefs; Department of Agriculture (DA) for farming assistance; and so on and so forth, he said. “The note I gave to the sick boy’s father is not actually required but it gives the bearer the courage to deal with the concerned government agency. In the past, people in the barrio are reluctant to seek medical attention from government hospitals, fearing the charges and cost of medicines,” Gonzalez said. Now everything could be availed of for free owing to the downloading of substantial funds taken from the former PDAF. “And should something go wrong in the way the fund is handled, Congress is mandated with an oversight function to look into it,” he said. What makes the new system more exciting is that congressmen need to do more legworks if they wanted to deliver the goods to their respective constituencies. “Since we perform dual functions—national legislators and at the same time, representatives of our people to the national government --, our work at home is to find out what are needed by our constituents especially in the barangays. We submit the list of these needs to concerned agencies which in turn will validate the same for inclusion with their proposal for funding under the next year budget,” Gonzalez said. For this year, he said, his district has been assured in the national budget of over Php2 billion in projects he recommended to national agencies for funding, including medical and educational assistance to the poor, agricultural productivity, disaster control, infrastructure and water system, among others. It is as simple as that and congressmen can no longer involve themselves in the implementation of whatever project they recommended, except in the monitoring. Officials of barangays that are project beneficiaries are now the ones linked with the implementing agency, hence, barrio folk and national government workers are drawn face to face with each other making the relationship more cordial and mutual, the congressman added. (PNA) CTB/FGS/DOC/CBD/
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 08:07:50 +0000
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