Group asks COA to audit Noy's P24.8B pork barrel

MANILA, Philippines - Fisherfolk group Pamalakaya on Friday called on the Commission on Audit to make a comprehensive audit on the P24.8 billion pork barrel that Congress had allotted to the office of President Benigno Aquino III last year.

"We hereby task state auditors of COA to perform a honest-to-goodness audit of the P24.8 billion pork barrel fund given to President Aquino last year. We deserve the real score and reel stories on the President's pork barrel fund," Pamalakaya vice chairperson Salvador France said in a statement.

France also said that the government should denounce the audit free policy on presidential pork barrel.

"It is against public interest since an audit-free presidential pork barrel is not only prone to big time crime of corruption, but also give political and legal impunity to crimes of plunder and malversation of taxpayers' money," he said. 

France made the appeal after Malacañang rejected the demand for the abolition of the President's Social Fund under the Office of the President.

Palace officials maintained President Aquino will keep his pork barrel to finance special projects and concerns, including the presidential budget for intelligence work.

"We are wondering why COA still refuses to audit the pork barrel of President Aquino. Until now, there is no report on how Mr. Aquino spent his PSF since he assumed the presidency in 2010.

"While Mr. Aquino enjoys immunity from suit being the incumbent president, he is not immune to public scrutiny on how he uses taxpayers' money. Let us all be clear here and this should be clear to COA," he added.

Pamalakaya said Aquino's pork barrel in 2012 include the P2.695 billion in intelligence funds, of which, P666 million was earmarked for national security monitoring including requirements for the Presidential Anti-Organized/Syndicated Crime and Transnational Crime Campaign.

The intelligence fund also allocated P600,000,000 for confidential and intelligence expenses to be released upon approval of the President, Pamakalaya said.

The group said that in 2012, the Office of the President also sought a P224.68 million budget for travel expenses.

Pamalakaya said President Aquino exercises discretionary powers on the intelligence funds of the Office of the President, contingent funds, calamity funds and unprogrammed funds. About P1 billion was given to President Aquino for contingent funds, it added.

The group said the Office of the President also received P14.2 billion for disaster management, apart from entry from the calamity fund, which went up to P7.5 billion in 2012 from P5 billion in 2011.