Is the budget row really about pork? Yes and no
Credit to Author: RICARDO SALUDO| Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2019 16:42:26 +0000
HOW much would the nation lose in development spending due to Senate-House debate over this year’s greatly delayed national budget?
In January alone, primary government expenditures fell by nearly P20 billion. And for the first quarter, ending next week, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez 3rd said P46 billion would not be spent, since major infrastructure outlays covered in this year’s General Appropriations Act can only be started after Congress passes the GAA.
It could get worse. The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) estimates that if the current reenacted 2018 budget is used till this month, economic growth this year would slow to between 6.1 and 6.3 percent, from the target of around 7 percent. If the new budget comes in only in August, growth slides to about 5 percent.
It’s not the principle
Protagonists in the budget battle, most especially Senator Lacson, would insist that principles, not projected growth, are the paramount reason in opposing what he insists are illegal pork barrel insertions by congressmen.
It’s hard to take him at his word for two reasons. First, he hasn’t actually presented a single example of improper items put in by the House. When the budget controversy started last December, he castigated the P2.4 billion allotted for the district of Speaker and former president Gloria Arroyo.
But no specifics were given, as if a round figure were all that was needed to render budget items illegal. Lacson’s claims of impropriety got even less believable when it emerged that 99 districts were allotted more money than Arroyo’s second district of Pampanga. One would receive P8 billion, with no objection from the senator, who detests the Speaker for the Dacer-Corbito murder case filed against him in 2010.
A second reason for doubting Lacson was his silence over past GAAs, including the 2011 and 2012 budgets, which got the Supreme Court to unanimously declare pork barrel, then called the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), unconstitutional.
The justices ruled that PDAF lump-sum allocations, for which legislators were to be consulted on specific projects to spend on, violated the separation of powers between the Legislative and Executive branches of government.
So, why was Lacson silent on PDAF, which, in fairness, he declined all his years as senator? Just a wild guess, but maybe it was because in 2011, then President Benigno Aquino 3rd squelched the Dacer-Corbito charges. Lacson then returned to the Senate from fugitive exile, along with Antonio Trillanes 4th, another Arroyo-hating senator whose criminal case Aquino also set aside.
Lacson was silent, too, about budget adjustments under previous Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, replaced by Arroyo last July. Alvarez backers reportedly asked a senator’s support to get their big allocations restored.
Early this month, just when the House and Senate seemed to have resolved GAA differences in their bicameral conference, Lacson protested the House itemization of its share of the P4.5-billion lump sum for health facilities.
His beef: congressmen who voted for Arroyo as Speaker would get P25 million each for their constituencies, while those who didn’t were allotted P8 million. Plainly, Lacson protested not lump-sum itemization, but the disparity in allocations for congressmen.
This is a first: In sum, a senator presumed to tell the House how it should allocate its share of a lump sum agreed with the Senate in bicam. That may well be the height of parliamentary discourtesy. How would senators feel if Andaya questioned GAA allocations for the Senate minority?
When pork isn’t pork
So, were budget gripes by congressmen the main reason for Lacson’s protestations? Well, here are the facts, based on the news.
In early December, Lacson objected to allocations to the GAA bill approved by the House and submitted to the Senate. He kept harping about tens of billions in purportedly anomalous items allegedly inserted in favor of Speaker Arroyo and her allies. Though he never cited even a single objectionable program or project, media published his claims with nil validation.
After a week or so, then Majority Leader Rolando Andaya Jr. debunked Lacson’s accusation that Speaker Arroyo was unduly favored, noting that her district was No. 100 among congressional jurisdictions in budget allotments.
Then Andaya launched his own attack, lambasting Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno for adding P75 billion in public works projects, which the Department of Public Works and Highways never included in its projects. Andaya also accused Diokno of improper actions relating to a construction firm owned by his son-in-law’s family, which was getting huge infrastructure projects.
The Andaya-Diokno tussle ended early this month when the latter was appointed Bangko Sentral governor, succeeding the late Nestor Espenilla. Soon after, the House-Senate bicam panel agreed on the GAA.
As was done before, the House then proceeded to itemize lump-sum items allocated for congressional districts. House opposition leader Edcel Lagman, a veteran of many budget deliberations, affirmed the legality of such post-bicam itemization.
But Lacson protested, citing the disparity in health-facilities funding for Arroyo allies and opponents. He also argued that post-bicam itemization was unconstitutional, and claimed — again zero proof — that every congressman got P160 million in pork.
It was the first-ever objection by any legislator against the long-accepted process of detailing lump sums agreed in bicam, an action even made compulsory by the 2013 Supreme Court decision outlawing unitemized pork-barrel lump sums.
Last week President Rodrigo Duterte himself convened Senate and House leaders to seek agreement. Despite Palace intervention, however, Lacson and Senate President Vicente Sotto 3rd continued to oppose the House version of the GAA bill enrolled and submitted to the Senate.
The House now looks set to withdraw its enrolled budget bill, while maintaining the legality of its draft GAA. Lacson and Sotto claimed vindication for their opposition.
Bottom line: Lacson opposed the disparity between budget allocations for Arroyo allies and opponents — a matter outside Senate jurisdiction — and the House’s compliance with the Supreme Court’s ruling against lump-sum pork barrel. Thanks to this self-styled principled objector, the economy may lose as much as 2 percent of growth.
Now, one can see why some quarters want the Senate abolished.
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