EDITORIAL - Chink in the armor

Anti-corruption activist Leonor Briones of Social Watch Philippines is claiming that about half of the P2 trillion national budget for 2013 is riddled with vague lump sums that she fears could be a source of corruption.

Asked to comment on the claims of Briones, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad says the SWP official was wrong in describing the questioned sums as insertions. He never bothered to answer the claim.

 The truth of the matter is that Briones never said the questioned sums were insertions. In fact, in a television interview on ANC by Pinky Webb, Briones was rather painstaking in explaining that the questionable sums she pointed out could not be insertions.

Insertions, Briones said, happens in Congress during the finalization of the budget figures. But the questionable sums that worry her are in fact in the original budget proposal, way ahead of the time when insertions can possibly be made.

According to Briones, what makes these sums in the budget questionable is the fact that they are just precisely that — huge lump sums. There are no breakdowns, no explanations, no identifiable purposes for the money other than their names.

These sums are for the Retirement benefit Fund, no specified amount; Priority Social and Economic Projects Fund, no specified amount; Budgetary Support Fund for Government Corporations (regular), P44 billion;

Budgetary Support Fund for Government Corporations (unprogrammed), P16.8 billion; Debt Management Program (unprogrammed), P60.9 billion; Unprogrammed Fund, P117.5 billion. Briones says these lump sums need to be broken down and explained to prevent them from being misused.

But Abad, who is a very vocal and visible part of an Aquino administration whose rise to power came on the crest of an anti-corruption platform, went in a direction directly opposite from where Briones was headed.

Instead of trying to shed light on what exactly were the lump sums for other than their coming under very generic titles, Abad tried to dismantle an argument that Briones never made — the sums being supposed insertions. A chink in the armor could be developing.