Battle over lump sums still on, say party-list solons

MANILA, Philippines—By dangling P15 million in additional funds to party-list lawmakers, House leaders should not expect them to drop their opposition to the Aquino administration’s P21-billion conditional cash transfer (CCT) program and P15-billion public-private partnership program (PPPP) under the 2011 national budget.

“It should not be quid pro quo,” Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Neri Colmenares said by phone. “We will continue to battle the lump sums under whatever situation as long as the budget is alive.”

Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. has agreed to grant P15 million in road users’ tax proceeds to party-list members and an additional P50 million in infrastructure funds to regular lawmakers, on top of the P70-million annual priority development funds starting next year, according to lawmakers.

Colmenares maintained that both the CCT and PPPP were lump sum appropriations that were “vulnerable to corruption” and ran counter to President Benigno Aquino III’s “zero-based budgeting” that seeks to justify every item in the budget.

The House approved on second reading the P1.645-trillion budget on Oct. 15, keeping the funds for the big-ticket CCT and PPPP intact despite attempts by several lawmakers to realign portions for other items.

Proposed realignments

The lawmakers haven’t given up, and hoped to introduce their proposed realignments to the items between now and when both the Senate and the House convene the bicameral conference committee to reconcile their versions.

Belmonte rejected some party-list lawmakers’ clamor for additional P50 million in infrastructure funds earlier granted to regular lawmakers, but said they could avail themselves of P10 million to P15 million from the proceeds of the road users’ tax.

Section 7 of Republic Act No. 8794 provides that money collected from road users’ tax can be earmarked solely and used exclusively for road maintenance and improved road drainage, installation of adequate and efficient traffic lights and road safety devices, and air pollution control.

Whether Malacañang would eventually grant the P15 million is irrelevant for now, according to Colmenares.

“Whether they grant it or not, we will continue to endorse any request for funding from local officials to concerned agencies. And we hope the agency will not look on its merits, and not on the endorser,” he said.

Pork barrel forms

Akbayan party-list Rep. Walden Bello said that the party-list group had rejected outright the P50 million and P15 million in extra funds.

“Those are two forms of pork barrel,” he said by phone. “We feel that pork barrel goes against what we’re elected for, which is to eliminate pork barrel.”

Bello believed that the demand for more development funds had been fueled by the discovery of former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s P2.2 billion “pork barrel” in Pampanga.

In Puerto Princesa City, Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman defended on Saturday her department’s P34-billion budget next year for the CCT as centerpiece poverty allegation program of the Aquino administration.

“They (some congressmen) think it is so big, but it is not … and we have to pass through the eye of the needle to get it approved by Congress. I appeal to Congress to take it from the perspective of the poor—the Aeta, the Tao’t Bato of Palawan. Because if you take it from their perspective, it becomes so much less,” Soliman said during a road show to initiate the project.

Arroyo early this week took the floor during plenary deliberations in Congress to question the capacity of the DSWD to implement the CCT program with its rapid increase in the budget, even as she clarified that the program itself was launched by her administration.

Soliman said the scaling up of the program in Palawan would be funded under a grant from the US government’s millennium challenge facility and would benefit close to 30,000 families in 15 municipalities.

The Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has lined up provincial road shows to launch the project throughout the country, with Palawan being the 5th region to receive the program. –TJ Burgonio, Redempto Anda, Inquirer Southern Luzon