Speaker tells militant solons to stop pointing fingers and help out

Speaker Prospero Nograles yesterday hit at militant party-list lawmakers who have been criticizing the government for its alleged slow action to help the victims of Tropical Storm “Ondoy” and Typhoon “Pepeng,” saying they should stop blaming the administration and instead help out in the efforts to provide relief to those affected by the calamity.

“They (militant members of the House) all complain about tragedies. But what’s important is what are their groups really doing to help out,” Nograles said in a text message after being asked by the media to react on the militant lawmakers’ allegations that the national government has been too slow to act to tend to the needs of the typhoon victims.

This as Akbayan party-list Reps. Walden Bello and Joel Maglungsod, Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Teodoro Casiño, and Gabriela party-list Rep. Liza Masa, in a press conference, questioned the proposed P10-billion additional calamity fund.

“We share the concern that there’s a need for an additional calamity fund due to the recent typhoons that hit our country. But there must first be an accounting of the previous P2 billion calamity fund. We must know what happened (to that fund), who benefited from it,” Casiño said.

“This administration must first explain where the P2 billion calamity fund went before the P10 billion supplemental budget is approved. And then it should also explain how the P10 billion is to be spent. It’s not like in a line budget hearing, but they should itemize how the P10 billion is intended to be spent and where it is to be sourced from,” he added.

Casiño, though, suggested that the P10 billion supplemental budget could be sourced from the administration’s special purpose funds, savings or even from the controversial road users’ tax instead of sourcing it from other means such as the proposed text on tax bill.

At the same time, the party-list lawmakers said instead of granting the supplemental budget for use in the latest calamity that hit the country, the government should impose a moratorium on debt payments next year.

Maglungsod said instead of realigning the national budget, which could affect the government’s delivery of basic services to the people, the administration should temporarily set aside the payment of debts to international monetary institutions so that the money intended for that purpose would instead be used to fund the rehabilitation of areas devastated by Typhoon Ondoy and help victims recover from the calamity.

With the hundreds of billions of pesos allotted to debt-servicing, he said the fund will go a long way in implementing not only an honest-to-goodness rehabilitation program for Ondoy’s victims, but as well as a disaster-preparedness program.

For 2010, the government has allotted P340.12 billion to service its $63 billion private and public debts (*Ibon facts and figures).

But Nograles rebuffed the militant lawmaker’s proposal for a moratorium on debt servicing, citing the various calamities that have hit the country in previous years, such as the so-called Ormoc tragedy, the Payatas tragedy and the ongoing fighting between government forces and Muslim rebels in Mindanao, which has caused displacement of thousands of residents in the conflict-torn southern region.

“We had disasters in water, flood mud in Ormoc, where hundreds died and thousands displaced. We had disasters in Panay (due to) storm ‘Frank,’ and the Payatas landslide. War in Mindanao (also) displaced more families and deaths. We didn’t stop foreign debt payments, did we?,” he pointed out.

“This is a time to unite and help, not to blame or grandstand because people are suffering,” Nograles said.

Instead of criticizing the government, he urged the party-list lawmakers to themselves extend help to the typhoon victims.

“Stop complaining and finger-pointing. Mobilize your groups and help,” the Speaker said. –Charlie V. Manalo, with PNA