The tug of war on the necessity of discretionary funds derisively called pork barrel, including that of President Aquino’s continued yesterday with Aquino stubbornly defending the use of such funds particularly the Piority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) of legislators, saying that instead of abolition, he favors stricter penalties for the misuse of public funds. Aquino told reporters on the sidelines of the Pambansang Kongreso sa Wika at Ateneo de Manila, that it is the process that needs changing, adding that while the pork barrel can be abused, it can also be put into good use. “Maybe the premise (of those against it) is that all those who use pork barrel is wrong. But I think, if we are to look into the Commission on Audit (CoA) report, not all are included,” he said. Aquino was referring to the special CoA report on the PDAF which was a selective audit of the years 2007, 2008 and 2009 which were all under former President Arroyo. “It was pointed out (in the CoA report) how the PDAF was being used wrongly. That is what we wanted: number one, investigation. There are cases filed against (alleged brains of the P10-billion PDAF scam) Mrs. (Janet Lim) Napoles. There is already a warrant of arrest issued for her,” Aquino said. Aquino said the critics of the pork barrel should also consider government projects that have been funded for good use. “So, as if we are saying that even those that had been good projects funded by PDAF were wrong,” Aquino said. Aquino cited his term when he was still a member of the Lower House as a Representative of Tarlac where he used his pork barrel for his priority project at his district needed by the people of Tarlac. “For instance, when I was a Congressman, I used my PDAF to construct the stretch of MacArthur Highway. We all know it is a national road. That is not covered by my Congressional funds but no one addressed calls for the repair of that road,” Aquino said. “So, there were many people (who) benefited after that road was rehabilitated and repaired especially that part (which was) being flooded every time there is rainfall in Tarlac,” Aquino said. Aquino stressed that PDAF is not different from other things that can be used for the right or wrong purposes by the lawmakers. “Maybe, the right thing to do is that using the PDAF in a wrong way needs necessary punishment, and those who are using their PDAF in a right way deserve our support because it directly gives help in the community more so to those outside the National Capital Region,” Aquino said. Aquino said when he was Congressman of Tarlac, he had even opted not to avail of his PDAF alloted by former President Gloria Arroyo which was P70 million every year. Aquino was elected senator in 2007 that entitled him to P200 million every year. “When I was a freshman in Congress, I did not want the use of PDAF,” Aquino said adding it was local barangay leaders who had taught him the need to use the allotted PDAF to his office as Tarlac representative. “There is a need to give focus on neglected obligations that the national government has failed to perform together with the elected Representative of the district to do the negotiations as well as the local government units to identify directly the need of each local community,” Aquino said. Aquino said the PDAF could not be easily abolished because the national government (under his term) could not yet address the perennial problems of the local communities which normally are bridges and road repairs, public school buildings, public hospitals, and public health, and the peace and order situation. “So if we are to abolish (PDAF), it means that we are expecting the national government to provide all the needs and even address them all the time. I think that is hard to do,” Aquino said. Aquino said that the better thing to do for the PDAF system is to craft an enabling policy how to use the billions of pork barrel allotted to the Congressmen. “Use this properly. Put on additional restrictions. Expand the so called safeguards and the monitoring of its implementation,” Aquino said. Aquino said there had been changes already instituted on the policy of how the PDAF would be used by the Congressmen. “Well, expanded safeguards had been made already and to minimize the chances to use the PDAF in the wrong way,” he added. “But I think that the process can be improved more to insure no more chances for those who want to abusive to abuse,” Aquino said. The fisherfolk alliance Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya), however, said Aquino should allow CoA to pursue a comprehensive audit of the P24.8 billion pork barrel Congress had allotted to the Office of the President since he assumed office on June 30, 2010. “In the name of truth, justice and public accountability, we hereby task the Office of the President to allow state auditors of CoA to perform a honest-to-goodness audit of all the pork barrel granted to Aquino’s office since he assumed the presidency on June 30, 2010,” Pamalakaya vice chairman Salvador France said in a statement. For a start, the Pamalakaya leader said Malacañang should give the go-signal for CoA auditors to review the P24.8 billion pork barrel given to Aquino in 2012. “The Filipino public deserves to know the real score and President Aquino must submit himself to public inquiry,” France said. France maintained that the audit free policy on presidential pork barrel should be denounced and renounced adding that the audit free regime on presidential pork barrel is against public interest since an audit-free presidential pork barrel is not only prone to big time crime of corruption, but also give political and legal impunity to crimes of plunder and grand malversation of taxpayers’ money. Meanwhile, Buhay Rep. Lito Atienza again called on the House leadership to conduct an immediate investigation into the alleged misuse of billions of pesos in Priority Development Assistance Funds (PDAF). This is in reaction to the CoA special report on Aug. 16, tagging 192 solons in almost P6-B in PDAF that had been misused. Atienza, who has been in the forefront in fighting the pork barrel, had filed House Resolution No. 157 last Aug. 5, 2013 calling for the immediate suspension of the implementation of the PDAF pending the completion of the investigation by the concerned government agencies regarding the alleged anomalies at the same time to consider initiating very drastic reforms to make the system tamper-proof, short of abolishing it altogether. “Let us seriously take up this matter for the good of Congress as an institution. This is a matter that affects everyone. The sooner the truth comes out, the better for all of us—then we can exonerate the innocent and punish the guilty,” Atienza said. The Atienza resolution said, “the alleged anomalous use of the PDAF has scandalized not only some members of both Houses but likewise the institutions that they belong to; and until the matter is clarified, the continued use of the PDAF will certainly cast a cloud of suspicion that said funds will be misused by those who avail of this.” “The CoA report which came out last Friday was very alarming, almost P6-B in PDAF was misused by 192 solons, with some of them practically funding their own NGOs, hindi ba dapat imbestigahan ito?” Atienza asked. “Since we know that abolishing the pork barrel will probably take a long time before happening, we are calling for the immediate suspension of its implementation until everything is cleared up,” Atienza said. A staunch ally of Aquino in the House also called for the abolition of the PDAF even as the lawmaker said the pork barrel system is “incompatible with the President’s reform agenda.” According to Akbayan Rep. Walden Bello the shocking revelations in the recent state audit should prompt the Aquino government to abolish the pork system. “We call on President Aquino to support us in our call for the total and unconditional abolition of the pork barrel system. This is a system that has been exposed time and again as a tool of patronage politics aimed to foment elite rule through political dependence,” Bello said yesterday. Bello added that the pork barrel system “leads us away from the straight path and back to a dark and corrupt past.” “As a leader who has unequivocally demonstrated his commitment to good governance and honest service, President Aquino must take the bull by its horns and make good on his promise to eradicate systemic corruption by abolishing the PDAF once and for all,” Bello added. Akbayan Rep. Barry Gutierrez said that what is clear from the recent scandal is the fact that despite existing safeguards, corrupt politicians and officials have found a way to repeatedly and massively abuse PDAF. While a gradual phase out of the PDAF to ensure the implementation of budget reforms and the readjustment agencies’ priorities to deliver basic services to the people would have been ideal, the extent and pervasiveness of last week’s appalling revelations demand that we cut clean by doing away with the entire pork barrel fund. Bayan Muna Rep. Neri Colmenares said that the Aquino government should hasten its investigation in light of the growing list of parties involved in the pork barrel scam by having a joint Department of Justice (DOJ)-Ombudsman investigation. Colmenares also proposed conducting the DOJ-Ombudsman hearings in public, similar to congressional investigations and urged citizens to actively participate in the investigation to avoid chances of a whitewash. Charlie V. Manalo, Gerry Baldo
Posted on: Wed, 21 Aug 2013 08:13:06 +0000
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