Lacson: Proposed 2020 budget still ‘pork-ridden’

Senator Panfilo Lacson on Wednesday said the proposed P4.1-trillion national budget for 2020 is still pork-ridden.

“Bad habits are indeed hard to break,” Lacson said in a press statement, adding that this is one reason he did not attend the signing of the bicameral conference report on the budget bill.

Earlier in the day, the bicameral conference committee approved the report on the proposed P4.1-trillion national budget for 2020. The members of the joint panel signed and adopted the report during a meeting held at the Manila Polo Club in Makati City.

The bicam report will be presented to the Senate and House of Representatives for ratification before it is sent to President Rodrigo Duterte for signature.

USB drive

In his statement, Lacson said that on Tuesday night after the Senate session, his office received from the House of Representatives through the Senate Legislative Budget Research and Monitoring Office (LBRMO) one USB drive containing two files, the “Source” File and the “List” File.

He said their 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 signed by Senate and House panels this morning.

“Since there is no preliminary explanation from the House regarding the two files, we 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,” he said.

“What is clear, though, is that there are still lump sums and vaguely described projects that are now part of the bicam report,” he added.

He said the top five provinces include:

• Albay: P670 million
• Cavite: P580 million
• Sorsogon: P570 million
• Batangas: P502 million
• Bulacan: P440 million
• Pangasinan: P420 million
• Cebu: P410 million, among others

Lacson said 117 flood control projects worth P3.179 billion dominate the insertions, with eight projects uniformly budgeted at P60 million each.

“There are more corruption-driven insertions in the Files sent to us that I have not mentioned,” he said.

Lacson said he will continue to diligently scrutinize the budget bill and inform the Department of Budget and Management and the Office of the President “as I have high hopes 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,” he added.

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.”

‘Nothing irregular’

Senator Juan Edgardo Angara, finance committee chairman, said there are indeed insertions in the 2020 budget but he thinks there is nothing irregular to it because they followed the Supreme Court decision on pork barrel.

“Taon taon naman nag-iinsertion talaga ang House members kasi sa tingin nila ‘yun ang pangangailangan ng kanilang distrito. You should ask the House also about those projects,” Angara told reporters when asked about the matter.

“We tried to conform sa decision ng SC dun pork barrel. We tried to avoid lump sums and secondly we tried to line item,” he added.

He said there will be no post-enactment legislation in the 2020 budget after its approval.

“Ngayon even before we approved kailangan naka-itemize na yung project,” he said. — RSJ, GMA News