The Market Monitor Minding the Nation's Business
By Riza Lozada
Former senator and Presidential Assistant for Rehabilitation and Recovery Panfilo Lacson Jr. is petitioning the Supreme Court (SC) on August 10 to restrain the Aquino administration, primarily Budget Secretary Florencio “Butch” Abad, from using portions of the budget, which, he said, is part of what he termed as the resurrected pork-barrel system in this year’s budget.
Lacson, in a forum on the 2015 budget at the University of the Philippines last week, said Malacañang should account for more than P500 billion in pork barrel funds inserted in this year budget that are lined up for spending until December with the aim of generating political patronage for the presidential elections next year.
Lacson said his lawyers will include in the charges against the Aquino administration contempt of court, for disregarding the SC ruling on the Disbursement Accelerated Program (DAP), which declared as unconstitutional acts committed by the Executive Department in creating the DAP.
He said such acts were the same ones undertaken in creating the P500-billion lump sums in the National Expenditure Program for 2015.
The ex-senator, who described himself as having fought the pork-barrel system since 2003, added that funds not itemized in the budget would bloat the total funds for use of the administration this year to more than P3 trillion, against the P2.6 trillion that was under the General Appropriations Act.
He said this unitemized funds include a continuing appropriation worth P110 billion, P392 billion in unused and/or unobligated funds, and P275 billion in other unused funds by agencies that cannot be obligated.
“The national expenditure program has become increasingly alarming,” he said. In citing his allegations on pork funds, Lacson said that, in the budget for national irrigation, for instance, the 2015 budget for the National Irrigation Administration (NIA) was P28.75 billion, but Lacson said his data revealed that there were insertions amounting to P66.2 million for the Agno River project, which was not specified in the agency’s budget.
He added that, on the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) website, budget appropriations included in the unified accounts code structure (Uacs) has missing details.
“We are wondering on the whether it was oversight, neglect,” he said.
“We will petition on this with the Supreme Court,” Lacson said as he presented some of the findings his team worked on studying the 2015 budget, among these, were the lump-sum P11.3-billion funds, missing 17 Uacs, insertions of P146 million, and an increase in the total amount of P1.2 billion for the Department of Agriculture (DA), where most irregular government transactions were undertaken.