De Venecia bats for tighter check on P100-billion stimulus fund

MANILA, Philippines - Opposition senatorial candidate Joey De Venecia said yesterday the next Congress should monitor the use of the P100-billion stimulus fund.

 “The next Congress should actively monitor the use of funds and evaluation of corruption-prone infrastructure projects to be financed using the P100-billion economic stimulus package embedded by the outgoing Arroyo administration in the P1.54 trillion 2010 national budget,” De Venecia said.

De Venecia said there should be no repeat of the scrapped ZTE-NBN nationwide broadband deal that he successfully opposed, where a Senate investigation determined that fully P10 billion of the total P16.5-billion project cost would have gone to corruption via bribes to administration officials and personalities close to Malacañang.

“While such a huge amount of public funds will certainly help pump-prime the Philippine economy, we must be vigilant against the covetous intentions of unscrupulous project proponents who bloat their proposals to feed bribe-taking project fixers. We in the opposition will make doubly sure that the implementing parameters for the economic stimulus program will include reforms that will give the Commission on Audit the necessary pre-audit fiscal powers to prevent the diversion of public money for pay-offs,” De Venecia said.

“Corruption in government infrastructure projects creeps in when the playing field for project proponents is not level and when there are not enough safeguards against the entry of bidders who do not really have the required finances and technical expertise to undertake the projects. If we in the reform-minded opposition are not cheated out of victory in the elections, we will wage an unrelenting battle to stamp out corruption in all its forms,” De Venecia added.      –Jose Rodel Clapano