Pork Alive and Kicking? CONGRESSMEN TOLD TO GO ‘PAPERLESS’ WHEN ASKING FOR PORK ALLOCATION

The online news portal of TV5

MANILA – Go paperless. No paper trail.

These were the marching orders given to congressmen wishing to lobby for projects with Executive agencies even after the Supreme Court has declared unconstitutional any act by legislators to intervene in the execution of the budget like identifying projects, fund release and/or fund realignment.

According to InterAksyon.com sources, lawmakers were instructed to directly coordinate with the agency heads to lobby for their projects since the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has already executed a budget call.

“Gumagawa na ng budget ang agencies, maganda na maisama na yung proposed projects namin,” a source told InterAksyon.com.

“There was also a proposal for us to meet the agency head/ secretary as a bloc [so our request is] consolidated for funding and so as to [make the process] efficient. For example, I need this road for my district, [if I’m with the congressman from the next district, [it seems better to connect his] road project proposal,” another source said.

“As for scholars, we can recommend a list to CHED [Commission on Higher Education], but they will still have to screen this based on the criteria of CHED,” the source added.

Abad distances self from ‘order’

Budget Secretary Florencio Abad, however, said they do not have anything to do with the said informal order.

“You will have to ask the congressmen that. As far as we are concerned we just release funds for social services to the implementing agencies,” he told InterAksyon.com in a text message.

Pork forms?

In a forum on Friday, Party-list Representative Antonio Tinio of ACT Teachers claimed that there is a form that has been circulating in the House of Representatives where lawmakers can write their wish list.

He said this is one of the informal ways by which lawmakers can access the “hidden pork” with the line agencies where the budget that used to be meant for Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) was realigned in the 2014 budget.

Tinio used the term ‘informal’ since there was no letterhead, and no signature of the person authorizing the solicitation of information in the said form.

“The important thing here is the contact person of the congressman. This would be submitted to the agency, for the information of the agency so that they would know how the lump sum under their budget may be allocated and who would be contacted,” he said.

“So when they give the list of beneficiaries, they would know that this is from so and so congressman,” Tinio added. “This is how Congress and the Executive are working now in order to continue the practice of congressional pork.”

However, InterAksyon.com sources and House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte denied that such forms exist or are being circulated among the lawmakers.

“There’s no such form. Who is distributing the forms? And why should anyone believe them?” Belmonte said.

To this, Tinio said that it is to be expected that his colleagues in the Lower House would deny the existence of the form.

Malacanang was forced to declare that PDAF no longer exists in the 2014 budget after the public clamor for its abolition reached its height in the third quarter of last year.