By Priam Nepomuceno/PNA
MANILA — The alleged congressional “pork” allocations have been retained in the bicameral version of the proposed PHP3.757-trillion national budget for 2019, Senator Panfilo Lacson revealed on Thursday.
Lacson said Senator Loren Legarda, chair of the Senate finance committee, articulated the bicameral conference committee report on the 2019 budget during the all-senator caucus Wednesday night.
“Basically yes, the PHP160 million per House member plus the billion-peso insertions made by a number of their colleagues, and the PHP23-billion Department of Public Works and Highways insertions by a number of senators plus other insertions in different agencies have all been retained,” Lacson said.
“Sadly, no matter how hard I argued last night, I only have one vote although I have good reason to believe that some like-minded colleagues are supportive of deleting all pork insertions, particularly the excessive and unconscionable realignments made not only by our House counterpart, but by a number of our colleagues as well,” he added.
The Senate is expected to ratify the spending bill on Friday.
Lacson noted that while the controversial pork barrel funds were retained, all appropriations for flood control — particularly dredging, desilting and the like — have been deleted to be realigned to the capital outlay for purchase of dredging machines.
He also said that the realignment of the Department of Health’s budget and most of his institutional amendments have been retained, such as the 240-day-a-year school feeding program for wasted and nearly wasted school children, additional allowance for teachers, augmentation budget requested by the judiciary, and activation of one infantry division, among others.
He reiterated his call to President Rodrigo Duterte to further scrutinize the final version of the budget bill and exercise his line-veto power to remove “pork” insertions.
“More than that, hopefully, I was able to enlighten the public because of the public discourse that transpired, for or against the outlawed pork barrel. I would say, we have gained some headway in this regard,” he said.
