EDITORIAL
Manila Standard Today
Manila Standard Today
Senator Miriam Santiago said a mouthful that should put many of her colleagues in the Senate and the House of Representatives to shame. The feisty senator called a spade a spade when she exposed the practice of her colleagues to pocket, every year, hundreds of millions of pesos in pork barrel kickbacks, unspent money in their budgets and numerous bonuses coming from secret funds.
Senator Santiago accused the Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives of creating and spending “savings” and “secret funds,” which the Commission on Audit would not dare review for fear of clashing with politicians.
“The so-called savings of each public office has turned into a national scandal, the grandmama of all scandals,” Santiago said.
Such savings are allowed by the Constitution to be used at the end of the year. “But in reality, the head of office manipulates the books and creates so-called savings, by refusing to fill up vacancies, or refusing to buy essential office supplies or services, or capital equipment. These so-called enforced savings are then distributed among the highest officials in the guise of Christmas bonuses,” Santiago said.
The senator issued the blunt remark in reaction to the public admission of Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile that he authorized the release of the Christmas bonuses of 22 senators totaling almost P30 million from unspent funds. At least 18 senators received P1.6 million each and four senators P250,000 each.
Enrile’s admission was unconscionable, even if he defended his action as “purely discretionary on the part of the Senate President.” The savings remain public funds that could be reallocated to more deserving sectors such as health and education. They could contribute to the funding of farm-to-market roads, purchase medicines in behalf of many indigent Filipinos or rehabilitate bridges or other structures damaged by recent typhoons.
Senator Enrile should be reminded that the national government is still incurring a budget deficit, which means a great part of expenditures are funded by borrowings due to a shortfall in tax revenues. The bonuses he doled to his fellow senators could have at least reduced the budget deficit and cut the borrowings of the government he serves.
The high officials who received their bonuses from Senator Enrile should immediately return the money in consideration of the fiscal problems facing the government, and should not behave as if they are above reproach.
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RELATED STORY:
4 GMA allies still without ‘pork’
By Jess Diaz
The Philippine Star
The Philippine Star
MANILA, Philippines – Four allies of detained former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo have remained “pork-less.”
Representatives Augusto Syjuco Jr. of Iloilo, Mitos Magsaysay of Zambales, Diosdado Arroyo of Camarines Sur and Juan Miguel Arroyo of the party-list group Ang Galing Pinoy did not receive their Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) allocations for 2011 and 2012.
PDAF, which holds P25 billion every year, is the official name of the congressional pork barrel. It allocates P200 million for each senator and P70 million for each member of the House of Representatives.
Malacañang officials have claimed that though Arroyo’s allies were not receiving their PDAF funds, the budget department was releasing the money to their constituents.
Arroyo received a total of P109.2 million in 2012. The amount included the P39.2-million balance of her PDAF allocation for 2011.
The former president is detained at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center in Quezon City on a plunder case. She is also facing election sabotage charges.
The former president devoted all her 2012 PDAF funds to her district, unlike in 2011 when she shared a third of her P30.8 million with seven allies – Amelita Villarosa of Mindoro Occidental, Danilo Suarez of Quezon, Martin Romualdez of Leyte, Arthur Yap of Bohol, Marc Douglas Cagas of Davao del Sur, Magsaysay of Zambales and her son Diosdado of Camarines Sur.
Villarosa, Suarez, Romualdez, Yap and Cagas also availed themselves of P70 million in PDAF in 2011.
It was not clear why Arroyo did not share her funds with Syjuco, who was Technical Education and Skills Development Authority chief during her administration.
When she was president, Arroyo starved her critics and members of the opposition, including then Tarlac congressman and later Sen. Benigno Aquino lll, of their PDAF allocations.
In April 2010, during the presidential campaign, Aquino said he had not been receiving his PDAF funds.
“My last was in 2005, which was a SARO (Special Allotment Release Order) for hospitals. None afterwards. Mar (Roxas), I understand, is also not getting any,” he said when asked if he and Roxas, his vice presidential running mate, were receiving their pork barrel allocations.
Aquino was still a Tarlac congressman in 2005. He was elected senator in 2007.
Syjuco wrote Aquino in which he pleaded for the release of his funds for the sake of his Iloilo constituents.
He said he did not think that the President held any grudge against him since their paths had rarely crossed.
He said he suspected that his political opponents in Iloilo had poisoned Aquino’s mind about him.
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