Bill gives more 'pork' to lawmakers

MANILA, Philippines - The House of Representatives has opened plenary debates on a bill that seeks to give members of Congress more pork barrel allocations.

Under Bill 4069 authored by Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez, each House member would have an additional P20 million and each senator would get P60 million more.

The additional funds

would be taken from billions in collections from the motor vehicle user’s charge (MVUC) or the road user’s tax.

These would be on top of millions in regular annual pork barrel allocations taken from the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) in the annual budget.

For this year, the PDAF holds nearly P25 billion. Each House member gets P70 million in PDAF money, while each senator is allocated P200 million.

Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casiño expressed concern over public perception on the additional allocations.

But Suarez said under Republic Act 8794, the law imposing the MVUC, each congressional district is supposed to be entitled to certain amount of funds from the road user’s tax, which is collected from motor vehicle owners.

However, he said there were certain districts that received huge amounts of funds, while many districts got small sums.

He said his bill would equalize the distribution of MVUC funds.

He added that while districts in the provinces would get P20 million, those in urban areas would be given P30 million since there are more motor vehicle owners in these areas who contribute to the MVUC funds.

He assured Casiño that party-list representatives would be included in the “equalization” of MVUC fund allocations.

Suarez also said the Road Board, which is supposed to administer MVUC collections, would have nothing to do with the implementation of projects to be funded from the additional money.

He said identification and implementation of projects would be the “discretion” of the district or party-list representative concerned and the district engineer.

“We do not have to go to the Road Board for funds and project implementation,” he said.

He pointed out that the reforms his bill seeks to institute could prevent a repetition of past abuses in the use of MVUC funds.

Not too long ago, Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago uncovered irregularities involving billions in road user’s tax collections.

She even recommended to the Ombudsman the filing of plunder charges against certain Road Board officials.

It is not clear if the Ombudsman heeded her recommendation.