#BullShitAquino #TuwidNaDaan #TuwidSaBulsa #ThePandorasBox 2015 budget fat with pork for ABNOY, allies MIRIAM BLASTS DILG ‘PATUBIG’ WORTH P1.6-B Even an ally in the Senate saw... Even an ally in the Senate saw through the Palace’s aim of packing the P2.6-trillion budget next year with pork barrel for legislators, aside from a total of P500 billion that will be under the sole discretion of President Aquino to disburse. Contradicting the Palace’s and its allies’ claim that the 2015 national budget is “pork-free”, Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago accused the Executive of coming up with a pork-laden expenditure program for next year, further hinting that the proposed national appropriation appeared to be all geared toward bankrolling the administration’s campaign for the 2016 elections. Santiago specific-ally questioned an allotment of some P1.6 billion for the “patubig” (water supply) project of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) as well as the alleged lump sum appropriations of five agencies totalling P37.3 billion. DILG is under Secretary Manuel Roxas II, the presumptive standard bearer of the administration’s Liberal Party (LP). Santiago said next year’s proposed national expenditure program suffers from what she termed as two dangerous minefields, the redefinition of savings and the retention of pork barrel funds which were both the subject of constitutionality question by the Supreme Court last year, in the light of its alleged misuse. The SC had ruled last year the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) or legislative pork barrel as being unconstitutional outright while tagging Executive schemes creating the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) primarily the accumulation of savings earlier than provided under the law as violating the Constitution. “It gives too much money where it should not be placed. It does not give enough to where it is most needed. It’s a very lopsided budget. It is very cleverly-crafted but you can see through the device that it is meant to give heads of certain agencies with grassroots connections or relationships much more money for topics that are not necessarily covered by their mandate,” she told reporters after delivering her piece in the middle of the plenary deliberations on the proposed 2015 budget. “Let me raise a big question about the 2015 budget. Last summer, why were representatives asked to submit lists of projects they endorsed for their districts? I understand that the form distributed did not bear any letterhead,” the senator said in a privilege speech. While the legislative lump sums are huge, Santiago said the presidential pork is even bigger amounting to over P500 billion for 2015 alone. The DILG for instance, Santiago pointed out, has questionable allocation alongside the P37.3 billion worth of projects allocated to the Departments of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), Health (DoH), Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), Labor and Employment (DoLE) and Commission on Higher Education (ChED). Of the said figures, P18.4 billion has been appropriated to DPWH for “Land Infrastructure Program.” “The DILG for example, I had to step out of the plenary session hall because I’m now out of breath but I would have wanted to interpolate why for example so much money was given to that Patubig project of DILG? It does not have primary authority over water, that’s (in the realm of) the national irrigation authority. And so on with the other projects all in the DILG. Are these local politicians expecting some windfall during the campaign period? Is that why the budget is so skewed like that?” she commented. The lawmaker was apparently referring to the DILG’s P1.57 billion appropriation for potable water supply project to waterless municipalities and barangays. The project, it was gathered, “shall be implemented subject to the execution of a memorandum of agreement (MoA) between the DILG and the respective local government unit (LGU).” This is part of the agency’s annual budgetary allocation for next year, pegged at P104.57 billion. The DILG was also earlier reported to have received the lion’s share in the P1.5 billion confidential and intelligence funds under the proposed national budget as it is proposed to be given the highest allocation with P326 million, P20 million of which is said to be alloted to the secretary and P306 million to the Philippine National Police (PNP). When asked to provide more details on her allegations of endorsement of projects of some congressmen, Santiago said the matter was only relayed to her by a source whom she identified only as a professor of economics from the University of the Philippines (UP). “For some reason, she heard of this project afoot which is very very suspicious except that I was not given anymore details. Let’s just assume for the sake of argument only that it is true, why should anyone want to distribute slips of paper and ask representatives in the lower house to write down what projects they desire for their districts?,” she said. “That’s the very essence of pork barrelism, when you give a huge lump sum to a person and say well tell us what you want it for but you are free to decide where to spend it on. It seems to me very much reminiscent of the old pork barrel practices. So if that is the case, then they are getting ready to institute the same pork barrel practices under the 2015 budget. Otherwise what’s the point?” she pointed out. The SC late last year declared as unconstitutional the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) also known as pork barrel overturning its earlier position, in the light of widespread allegation of misuse of the multimillion peso discretionary funds received by lawmakers yearly. “I see that all these efforts are measures taken to dilute the power of the purse. In the end, we might be left with nothing except the power to appropriate on paper but have no power whatsoever with respect to its execution,” she said. “I think it is a disservice to President Aquino to produce a sloppy budget. I can see through it and I’m not a technical person, I don’t have technical training in finance or economics. I’m in you know, defining, providing that, using the constitutional provision that there shall be no transfer of appropriation, it’s what the media call fund joggling except in case of savings,” she said. “So this is very strict, there should be a project. If you read the provision as it is now, or as it was under the old budget, savings can only be realized after the project has been completed and the fundings not fully used up.Their definition now is so lax that you can get savings from any amount, for any purpose as long as you declare that it is discontinued or abandoned,” she said. Santiago said she had been assured by the chairman of the Senate finance committee, Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero, that the panel will abandon the definition of savings in the proposed budget introduced by Malacañang and approved by the House of Representatives in their version of the money measure. “Also, the (committee will) make sure that when the budget authorizes savings, it should make sure that there is a final discontinuance or discountinuation, not just a mere discontinuation because you can have part of a project finished and then say I discontinue it. But that is different from when a project is about to be finished or is already physically impossible to finish and then you say I finally discontinue it,” she said. In her speech, she pressed for the return to the old definition of savings and a provision under Section 91 of the general provisions to compel the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to submit a compliance with reportorial requirements on lump sums. Santiago also urged that the P2.69 B for the socio-economic component of the Bangsamoro normalization process should be placed under Unprogrammed Appropriations because Congress has not yet passed the Bangsamoro Basic Law. Santiago quoted the Constitution, Article 6, Section 25 para. (5) which states: “No law shall be passed authorizing any transfer of appropriations; however, (certain government officials) may, by law, be authorized to augment any item in the general appropriations law for their respective offices from savings in other items of their respective appropriations.” “The old definition of savings was better. It allowed savings only after final discontinuance or abandonment of the work, activity, or purpose. The new broader definition allows savings during discontinuance or abandonment at any time,” the senator said. Santiago said that under the 2015 budget, an agency that fails to obligate any allotment loses it. “What happens to the commitment to Congress of the agency head that the agency will deliver a specified level of outputs, such as number of school buildings, completion date, kilometers of roads, linear meters of bridges, and so on? What if certain projects that were funded out of ‘savings’ were later submitted for Congress-authorized but DBM-discontinued projects? These are scenarios for corruption,” the senator said. Kabataan Rep. Terry Ridon hailed Santiago’s privilege speech. “We thank Senator Santiago for raising these pertinent issues that still surround the 2015 budget. We have raised these issues in the House plenary in the past months, to no avail. We hope that with Senator Santiago weighing in on this issue, the redefinition of savings in the 2015 budget will finally be expunged,” Ridon said. “The good senator is correct in pointing out how perilous these provisions are. In fact, these operative provisions governing ‘savings’ under the 2015 budget bill have been custom-fit to legalize DAP and allow its continued implementation in the future, despite the clear declaration of unconstitutionality issued by the Supreme Court,” Ridon explained. The legislator lamented the fact that the Lower House approved the General Appropriations Bill on third and final reading last month “without even lifting a finger to address the issue on the redefinition of savings.” “We have said this before, and now, Senator Santiago echoes it: If Congress allows this amendment in the definition of savings to pass, it will be tantamount to fully surrendering the congressional power of the purse to the president. Passing this new definition would usher in a new age of fiscal dictatorship, wherein the checks and balances enshrined in the Constitution would all wilt away,” Ridon added. At the same time, Ridon called on the senators to champion the cause of state schools and strongly consider allotting more funds to education. “We remind our colleagues in the Senate that the budget allotted for SUCs in the 2015 budget is only a third of their actual funding requirement. The continued underfunding for education has already resulted to catastrophic consequences, including the charging of exorbitant fees even in our state schools,” Ridon said. While the Lower House has already approved the 2015 General Appropriations Bill on third and final reading, the Senate has yet to conclude its plenary sessions on the budget. “There is still an opportunity for our senators to correct the situation that has been pitifully overlooked by the House,” Ridon said. Charlie V. Manalo
Posted on: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 03:47:11 +0000
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