Pork barrel embedded in budget?

Is there “pork” in the P3-trillion budget that President Aquino has just approved? This is what is uppermost in the minds of businessmen, given the assertion from former National Treasurer Leonor Magtolis Briones that there is plenty of that excess fat in the national appropriations, by far the biggest under the Aquino administration. 

Actually, the 2016 budget is double that of the first national budget under Aquino of P1.645 trillion and here, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad is proud to say that the main beneficiary of the gargantuan budget is social services. For perspective, Abad said, “It can be gleaned that for every P100 of the 2016 budget, around P64 will be spent on social and economic services. This clearly shows how the government is wisely investing on its people, with the foresight of supporting services that will keep serving their needs long into the future.”

What Abad is trying to impress upon the citizenry is that the focus of the approved budget is on social services that directly benefit individual citizens, through budget outlays for education and health, both with increased budgetary allocations at P436.5 billion and P128.5 billion, respectively.

Beyond this rhetoric, though, is the findings from the group of Briones that there is pork embedded in the budget and Abad cannot just ignore the persistent question on the pork barrel that was hidden from the public view. He cannot just take comfort from the fact that those who point out the pork-barrel allocations should just ask Congress.

For if the congressmen themselves were the ones who inserted the extra fat in the budget, with the concurrence, however grudging, from Abad’s office, then Congress cannot allow itself to be questioned at all. That fudging of the budget items so that they could not be termed pork barrel could have only come about with the tacit approval of the budget department.

Briones had raised factual data about what she termed fat, and together with the accusations from lead petitioner Greco Belgica that led to the Supreme Court ruling against pork barrel and its companion Disbursement Acceleration Program, there is a firm basis to suspect that Abad is not being forthright about the pork-barrel insertions.

The former national treasurer has in fact cited the pork-barrel funds. And she looks at the forthcoming election as the be-all to the pork insertions. She said, “small infrastructure projects were embedded in the 2016 budget and were specifically identified by legislators during the preparation phase of the budget, which amount to huge sums worth of public works.”

“Concrete examples are farm-to-market roads, which are identified with legislators who claim credit for them during election sorties,” Briones was quoted a saying as she ticked off the following adjustments lawmakers made in Aquino’s budget proposal, known as the National Expenditure Program (NEP):

• P403 million for training-for-work program under the DOLE-Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (P2.206 billion from P2.203 billion).

• P1.248 billion for local infrastructure under Department of Public Works and Highways-Office of the Secretary (P19.813 billion from PhP18.566 billion).

– P5.382 billion for protective services under the Department of Social Welfare and Development-Office of Secretary (P6.698 billion from P1.315 billion).

• P144 Million for Tulong Dunong Program under the Commission on Higher Education (P1.130 billion from P986.231 million).

• P662.538 million for financial assistance to local government units under Local Government Support Fund in the Allocation to Local Government Units (P862.538 million from P200 million).

This is not all. What Belgica is saying is that the letter of the law was not followed in the preparation of the budget, something that Abad has not refuted. For how can Abad answer the charges on the wrong way the budget was prepared when the budget chief has not allowed this to happen? Which is somehow ridiculous, given the penchant of Abad to refer the matter of the pork-barrel allocation to his “ask-Congress” riposte.

Belgica has the smoking gun and that is that the Local Government Code was not followed on the matter of the budget preparation. Under the Code, Belgica said the approved General Appropriations Act (GAA) or the budget itself should follow the “bottom up” budgeting system so prescribed. This requires the budget preparation to go through the process of the local development council.

He said administration officials “opted again to cut short the process by not organizing the councils, therefore directly putting the request and so the money to the national agencies.” With that, how can Abad refute the assertion about the pork barrel funds?