GMA gets P2.2B DPWH pork; solons given extra P50M

President Aquino and his Budget chief Florencio “Butch” Abad will get what they want from Congress by way of its members no longer questioning the lump sum appropriations insisted on by Malacañang in the 2011 national budget, with former President now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Arroyo getting the biggest “pork barrel” from the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) “pork” for her district’s projects.

In exchange for the House of Representatives looking the other way on Aquino’s non-transparent lump sum appropriations in the tens of billions, congressmen will be getting P50 million for their districts’ projects from the DPWH’s budget.

This is apart from their P70 million each in their Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), more commonly known as pork barrel, with Arroyo getting a cool P2.2 billion for her Pampanga district alone.

This came about after congressmen, disgruntled over the claimed inequitable distribution of the national budget, got that additional P50 million each, over and above their P70 million pork barrel allocation for their respective congressional districts through the DPWH, in effect creating a pork on pork barrels for themselves.

According to Eastern Samar Rep. Ben Evardone, the additional budget that will be implemented by the DPWH has been agreed upon in an all-party caucus yesterday afternoon.

“The amount could vary but the ceiling will have to be P50-million,” Evardone said in an interview yesterday.

Hepointed out that the P50 million is not part of the PDAF or pork barrel allocation for each member of Congress even as Speaker Feliciano Belmonte disclosed that the public works project allocation for Pampanga Rep. Arroyo’s district went as high as P2.2 billion while the adjacent first district got only P6 million.

“There is no politics intended here,” former Arroyo ally now Aquino’s ally, Belmonte claimed.

“First district of Pampanga has P6 million, more or less, the 2nd district has a budget of P2.2 billion. We cannot take away this amount of P2.2 billion for Pampanga’s second district, but we can add to the P6 million in the second district. These are neighboring districts, Belmonte added.

He said that most of the congressmen in Metro Manila have less than P50 million and that he is one of them. He did not say how much his Quezon City district will be having as additions to his huge pork barrel as Speaker.

“Believe it or not most of the congressmen in Metro Manila have less than P50 million. I am one of those who have less than P50 million. Third district has P24 million; Marikina has P1 million; Las Piñas, Malabon, Navotas are all below P50 million,” he said.

Evardone explained that those who already have more than P50 million in public works projects will not be able to avail of the additional P50-million.

Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casiño expressed shock over the recent developments at the House.

“I am shocked that the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has agreed to give all district representatives an additional P50 million each from the 2011 DPWH lump sum as admitted by the House leadership to the media (yesterday) afternoon,” Casiño said.

“Is this the price Malacañang is willing to pay to ensure the smooth approval of its preferred pork– the conditional cash transfers?” Casiño added.

“This is pork in exchange of pork,” he said.

According to the Speaker, it has been agreed upon in an all-party caucus yesterday afternoon that the lawmakers would have a part in the lump sum budget of the DPWH.

Evardone disclosed that the DPWH has over P47.4 billion in lump sum budget for national arterial and secondary national local roads and bridges and over P13 billion for roads classified as “urgent national arterial and secondary roads and bridges.” But no other details on what these projects are is present in the budget as this comes out as lump sum budgets.

He said that there are 13 other items classified in the lump sum budget with varied amounts some of which are for “flood control structures along major river basins and principal rivers (P4.5-billion); drainage/protection works and seawall along national roads/bridges” (P3.1-billion); and ‘rehabilitation, reconstruction /upgrading of damaged paved national roads” (P17.7-billion).

Evardone said that these projects will be listed under the public works projects intended for congressional districts.

The Speaker said that this budget is what they have agreed upon during the caucus.

After much discussion, clarification and rectification we have all agreed to a menu that these are the items for which the money can be used and these are subject to scrutiny by anybody particularly their own constituents,” Belmonte said.

The Speaker said that the menu would prohibit the money just passing to the LGU into an NGO of a congressman or of a party.

Belmonte also claimed that under the National Expenditure Program, certain amounts that would be spent by the DPWH would vary depending on the major projects in the various congressional districts.

Earlier, the disgruntled lawmakers from Visayas and Mindanao who moved to suspend the budget deliberations on Wednesday on the ground that they are being short-changed by the DBM had agreed to return to the session hall on the condition that they are given a list of projects that will be funded by lump sum appropriations and that they are allowed to “insert” their own projects into these appropriations.

House majority leader Mandaluyong Rep. Neptali Gonzales II was quoted as saying that the lawmakers have agreed to this after a meeting with Budget Secretary Abad that they will proceed with the budget deliberations while waiting for the list which will be given to them after Abad’s trip to Washington for a meeting with officials of the International Monetary Fund.

“At any rate if there is a failure on the part of the DBM to comply with its promise then there is nothing to prevent any members from making similar motions of deferment in the future,” Gonzales said.

Gonzales, alluding to the meeting with Abad, said that the lawmakers have been assured that funds categorized as lump sums would find its way to Visayas and Mindanao.

“The lump sum will find its way to funding programs for the benefit of these two regions (Visayas and Mindanao). It was the understanding that the budget secretary would be providing a list to the House members and we could go over the same,” the majority leader said.

Abad met with the House members late Wednesday night to explain the supposed unfair distribution of funds in the proposed national budget following the suspension of the plenary debates.

Only 7.7 percent and 10 percent of the entire national budget were allotted to Visayas and Mindanao, respectively.

House minority leader Edcel Lagman, joined the Visayas and Mindanao lawmakers in protesting the alleged unfair distribution of the national budget.

“First, whatever response or list or arrangement forthcoming from the secretary of DBM should be with the House before the approval of the bill on second reading and, second, any response, list, arrangement or commitment should be provided for in the General Appropriations Act as a congressional authorization “in order to protect this House and the members,” Lagman said.

Belmonte reportedly explained that insertions are not prohibited.

He added the distribution of budget “are virtually the same as the last two years.”

Belmonte was also reported yesterday as having defended the power of the House to propose projects using various lump sum allocations in government agencies, but also pledged that there would be a stop to “fantastic insertions” in the proposed P1.645-trillion national budget.

“Insertions are not illegal or wrong but from the very beginning, I made it known that I wouldn’t tolerate fantastic insertions that in the past amounted to hundreds of millions, even billions, of pesos,” Belmonte told reporters the other day.

Davao del Sur Rep. Marc Douglas Cagas, earlier junked Abad’s explanation on the inequitable distribution of funds even as he argued that the lump sum in the budget is still present in the proposed 2011 budget.

“There are no specific items in the budget that would correspond to budgetary increases for the Visayas and Mindanao. In reality, they (DBM and the executive) are depriving Congress of the power of the purse,” Cagas said.

“Instead, so much money was placed in DSWD for the Conditional Cash Transfers, which would make a nation of mendicants, beggars and lazy people. We should rather invest in teachers, classrooms, in health, in our sucs and even in infrastructure projects for roads and tourism,” Cagas added. –Gerry Baldo, Daily Tribune