MANILA – The Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), more popularly known as the pork barrel, should not be made as a political tool, an opposition lawmaker said on Thursday.
Zambales Rep. Milagros Magsaysay made the call in light of the release of a full P140 million worth of PDAF to Dinagat Islands through Rep. Arlene Bag-ao of Akbayan party-list who has been named by Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. as the islands’ caretaker.
Each lawmaker is entitled to a P70-million pork barrel every year for the perusal of their respective constituents, which means that Dinagat, through Bag-ao, got its full share of PDAF for 2011 and 2012.
In contrast, Magsaysay has only released P15 million of her due PDAF, since President Benigno Aquino 3rd assumed office. Moreover, the pork barrel release for Magsaysay was made back in 2010. She received zero worth of pork barrel for 2011 and 2012.
“What kind of decision making process was involved here? The PDAF should not be made as a tool to control congressmen, or to help them win elections which projects funded by pork will help them do. The pork belongs to the people. It does not matter that they belong to a district led by an administration or opposition solon,” Magsaysay, who is running for the Senate under the administration’s rival United Nationalist Alliance, said in a statement.
Bag-ao, who hails from Dinagat Islands, is running as a Dinagat representative in the May 2013 polls.
“The people are entitled to government services supported by these funds because this comes from their taxes. This just goes to show that the DBM [Department of Budget and Management] does not really care about the people. Rather, it just does as it pleases without regard for legality, propriety or basic decency,” Magsaysay added, referring to Secretary Florencio Abad of the Budget department.
It is Abad who calls the shots in terms of releasing the pork barrel funds for lawmakers.
“The DBM’s justification that the pork [PDAF] was released because it belonged to the people should have been the same principle that it thought of when the DBM decided to stop the release of the PDAF of several opposition congressmen,” Magsaysay added.
Earlier, Belmonte has stressed that Dinagat Islands would have secured the pork barrel it is due, regardless if Bag-ao is representing them in Congress.
“I was the one who appointed her and it makes sense because she is a sitting member of the House and she comes from Dinagat. There is no other person here [in the House] who comes from Dinagat. It was a reasonable thing to do,” Belmonte, vice chairman of the ruling Liberal Party, told reporters in a chance interview.
“She just happens to be our ally. And even if she is not our ally, she would still be the perfect person to replace Ecleo because she grew up in that place. She knows its needs. We have to admit that it is an advantage for her, but it [Bag-ao’s Congressional bid] is not the reason why she received PDAF,” Belmonte, a lawyer, pointed out.
former rep. Ruben Ecleo Jr. of Dinagat has been removed from the lower House only on May 22, 2012 in light of the Supreme Court’s affirmation of the Sandiganbayan’s guilty verdict on him on three graft charges. But even before his removal, Ecleo hasn’t been showing up in Congress since January 2011 because of the existing warrant of arrest served against him.
Aside from Ecleo’s absence that hampered the PDAF release for Dinagat, Belmonte invoked that the floating legal status of the Dinagat Islands for the past year because the High Tribunal flip-flopped on its decision on the legality of the establishment of Dinagat Islands.
“For all practical purposes, there is no [Dinagat] congressman to receive the PDAF at that time because he was in hiding and you can’t appoint a caretaker because the case is not yet decided with finality. Besides, Dinagat was non-existent for most of the term of Ecleo because of the pending case in the Supreme Court. Now, there is no question about their existence and they are entitled to receive their PDAF,” Belmonte added.
In a separate statement, Bag-ao disclosed that the P140-million PDAF that she got as a Dinagat caretaker were all accounted for and were spent for infrastructure projects and social service programs, such as medical assistance to the Caraga Regional Hospital for indigent patients, local orthopedic hospitals’ purchase of barangay medical kits for barangay health workers, assistance for the Surigao State College, Technology scholarship from the Commission on Higher Education as well as roads, water systems, multipurpose buildings and sea walls.
“It is sad that some only see the coming election with the release of the said fund. It doesn’t do justice to the people of Dinagat, who are yet to recover from the devastation of the typhoons even as they endured poverty and underdevelopment without their rightful share of the government’s resources,” Bag-ao, who served as a counsel of the Sumilao farmers prior to her election in Congress, argued. (Llanesca Panti)
Link: http://www.manilatimes.net/index.php/news/regions/38576-lawmaker-rolls-out-p140-m-pork-for-poll-bid
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