No more pork, but lump sums intact

MANILA, Philippines - There’s not a single peso of pork barrel in the proposed P2.606-trillion national budget for 2015, and the leadership of the House of Representatives will make sure it remains that way, Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said yesterday.

Belmonte issued the statement as the House resumes committee deliberations on the proposed budget this week amid ongoing protest actions against what civic and lawyers’ groups said were hundreds of billions of pesos in embedded “pork” in the government expenditure plan for next year.

“They’ve expanded the meaning (of pork barrel). They’ve widened it to include all the lump sums,” Belmonte said.

He cited as example the P14-billion Calamity Fund, “which is a lump sum but we cannot call it pork.”

He said the lump sums remain that way because of the very purposes they serve so they cannot be itemized.

“There’s absolutely no pork, and we’ll make sure there’s nothing that will go to the pockets,” Belmonte said.

Over P500 billion of the proposed national budget are in the form of lump sums, or “Special Purpose Funds” that also include the Contingency Fund, Miscellaneous Personal Benefits Fund, and the Pension and Gratuity Fund.

Former national treasurer and lead convenor of Social Watch, professor Leonor Briones, said the presence of lump sums in the government’s budget, especially for one that precedes the 2016 presidential elections, makes public fund even more vulnerable to corruption.

‘Imminent downfall’

Meanwhile, Kabataan party-list Rep. Terry Ridon said the massive anti-pork barrel protest is only a “prelude to the President’s imminent downfall” and further strengthens the Makabayan bloc’s resolve to impeach President Aquino.

“President Aquino may think that he controls the numbers when it comes to the impeachment process, yet the real numbers that matter are the thousands of ordinary citizens gathered here today to clamor for genuine social change,” Ridon said.

“We march in the streets to remind the President that he is no sovereign ruler, but a mere agent of the people. And the people have spoken clearly: we want you out,” he said.

The lawmaker also lambasted Malacañang for again denying that the pork barrel system still exists in the national budget.

“Apparently, Malacañang believes that if you repeat a lie a thousand times, it becomes the truth. Yet no amount of smoke and mirrors can hide the fact that various lump sums, discretionary funds, and allocations for political patronage still exist in the 2014, and even the 2015 national budget,” he said. – With Jess Diaz