‘P700-million additional pork for 32 new lawmakers’

MANILA, Philippines – President Arroyo has made sure that there is “pork” for every lawmaker in her proposed P1.541-trillion 2010 national budget.

Malacañang officials have told key members of the House of Representatives’ appropriations committee that the additional P700 million in the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) would be for the 32 new members of the chamber representing party-list groups.

“There is P20 million to P25 million in the PDAF for each of the new party-list representatives,” a source in the committee told The STAR yesterday.

Among the potential recipients are Mrs. Arroyo’s sister-in-law Ma. Lourdes Arroyo, representative of a group calling itself Ang Kasangga, and Jovito Palparan Jr., one of the President’s favorite retired generals.

Palparan represents Bantay (Bantay ng Tao at Yaman ng Pilipinas). His critics call him “The Butcher” for leaving a trail of political killings in the areas he had been assigned to when he was in the military service. He denies involvement in these killings.

Other potential pork barrel fund recipients are five representatives. They were among at least 28 House members who joined Mrs. Arroyo in her latest visit to the United States early last month.

They are Rodante Marcoleta of Alagad, Catalina Leonen Pizarro of Arts, Business and Science Professionals, Daryl Grace Abayon of Aangat Tayo, Agapito Guanlao of Butil, and Godofredo Arquiza of Senior Citizens.

They embarked on their first foreign trip as new lawmakers after barely warming their seats.

Marcoleta left with the presidential entourage on his first working day, having taken his oath of office just the night before. Guanlao and Arquiza brought along their wives.

The Supreme Court recently allowed 32 additional party-list representatives to sit in the House.

Palace insists pork is sliced

Malacañang maintained that it has cut pork barrel allocations for lawmakers in the proposed P1.541-trillion national budget for 2010.

Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya Jr. issued the statement to dispute a report that congressional pork barrel for this year is actually P700 million bigger this year.

The STAR report said the Palace, in proposing the 2009 budget, set the PDAF at P6.24 billion that lawmakers increased to P9.666 billion. For 2010, the administration allocated P6.940 billion, showing a P700 million increase in PDAF.

Andaya, however, stressed the “reference point” should be the 2009 General Appropriations Act “because it is the one being implemented… a PDAF level of P9.665 billion.”

“For next year, what we have proposed to Congress is a PDAF of P6.940 billion so clearly, there is a reduction,” Andaya said in a statement.

He said it would be the Senate and the House of the Representatives that will hammer out the final version of the proposed 2010 budget.

“We will appeal to them to please stick to the reduced level (of PDAF),” he said.

Meanwhile, Andaya also said tax revenue plowbacks to local government units will hit P290.6 billion next year, an increase of P14.6 billion from this year’s P276 billion.

Budget dangers

Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay said a re-enacted budget would benefit administration candidates in the 2010 elections as it would allow more realignments and last minute distribution of pork funds.

“Given the possibility of a reenacted budget in 2010, whoever Mrs. Arroyo will anoint will surely benefit from her presidential pork barrel which she can disburse at her discretion, and the leeway given to her to realign the budget,” Binay, who is also the president of the United Opposition, said.

Binay was reacting to claims of lawmakers that the national government might operate on a reenacted budget in the first few months of 2010, which also coincides with the campaign period for the national and local elections.

“We are looking at a probable repeat of the 2004 presidential election, and we all know what happened,” Binay said. Mrs. Arroyo is widely believed to have cheated in the 2004 elections.

He said Malacañang should be transparent and reveal how much has been earmarked as “presidential pork” in the 2010 budget.

“When you have such an amount to be disbursed at Mrs. Arroyo’s discretion during the election period, we can expect a repeat of the misuse of funds reported during the presidential 2004 election,” Binay said. –Jess Diaz (The Philippine Star) with Paolo Romero and Jose Rodel Clapano