Drilon: 15 senators willing to scrap PDAF from 2014 budget

MANILA, Philippines - The 24-member Senate is willing to scrap the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) allocation from the 2014 proposed budget, the upper chamber's leader said Monday.

Drilon made the announcement after being informed that members of the House of Representatives under the Liberal Party have agreed in caucus early today that they are pulling out the P25-billion PDAF of congressmen from the proposed P2.268-trillion budget for 2014.

“We support that if that is the case. We will support that in the Senate. We have 15 senators who already said they are ready to abolish PDAF,”  Drilon said.

Drilon added that the PDAF has been allocated in the annual national budget.

“We have to wait for the budget to come up to the chamber and on the period of amendments, we will make the amendments,” he explained. “What comes to us (Senate) is the GAA bill as passed by the House, then the PDAF budget for 2014 would already be deleted."

Asked how the process would be, Drilon said the Senate will still wait for their House of Representatives’ proposal.

“I will wait for their proposal,” he said.

Drilon raised to possibilities on what will happen to the controversial PDAF allocations. A senator receives P 200-million in PDAF while a congressman gets P70-million annually.

“That can happen, that the P25-billion will be deducted from the [2014 budget],” Drilon said.

The senator said that another option that the House of Representatives may do was to distribute the PDAF budget to line agencies.