Lacson blasts P83-B budget ‘insertions’
Credit to Author: Bernadette Tamayo| Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2019 16:18:48 +0000
SEN. Panfilo Lacson on Wednesday boycotted the signing of the bicameral conference committee (bicam) report on the budget over the alleged last-minute insertion of P83.2 billion in the proposed P4.1-trillion 2020 national budget.
“Bad habits are indeed hard to break,” the senator quipped.
Lacson said 117 flood control projects worth P3.179 billion “dominate the insertions, with eight projects uniformly budgeted at P60 million each.”
“One reason why I did not attend the signing of the bicam report [was because] last night, after our session, my office received from the HoR through the Senate LBRMO one USB (universal serial bus) containing two files — the ‘Source’ File and the ‘List’ File,” he said in a text message.
LBRMO stands for Legislative Budget Research and Monitoring Office while HoR is the House of Representatives.
“Our preliminary scrutiny of the last minute insertions made by the House would indicate that the Source File is the list of 1,253 budget items worth P83.219 billion that was apparently used as the congressmen’s ‘source’ of their ‘list’ of 742 projects worth P16.345 billion that were inserted in the bicam report that was signed by both panels this morning,” Lacson said.
Since there was no preliminary explanation from the House regarding the two files, he said the Senate “cannot ascertain if indeed only P16.345 billion or the bigger amount of P83.219 billion was inserted at the last minute prior to the bicam signing.”
“What is clear though is that there are still lump sums and vaguely described projects that are now part of the bicam report,” Lacson said.
He expressed hope that President Rodrigo Duterte “will again display his aversion to corruption.”
“’Pork’ is here to stay. I hope the President will again exercise his political will in vetoing line items that will obviously waste people’s tax money,” Lacson said.
“It is revolting to note that legislators keep on dipping their dirty fingers on our national
budget in spite of pending cases involving the same issue,” he added.
Asked to comment on Lacson’s allegations, Senate President Vicente Sotto 3rd said Congress did not want to delay the passage of the budget measure.
“We will just inform the executive department that that is the assessment of the Senate,” he added.
“We will leave it to the discretion of the President again just like what happened the last time. But I cannot express my personal opinion until I get to know what it is and what is behind it,” Sotto said.
“It depends on what it contains, the so-called P93 billion. It depends on what it contains, and what projects are identified there, on what departments they are placed. It depends,” he added. “I really have to look at it first and ask Sen. [Juan Edgardo] Angara for an explanation. He would know what it is all about.”
Angara, head of the Senate Finance committee, said the enrolled bill would be transmitted to Malacañang for President Duterte’s signature.
With a reports from JAVIER JOE ISMAEL