Budget group seeks abolition of Aquino’s P310-B ‘special purpose funds’

By Ernie Reyes
InterAksyon.com

Militant youths wearing mask to symbolize their protest demanding the abolition of the corruption ridden pork barrel and other funds during a picket rally in Manila. (Roy Cobilla/InterAksyon.com)

MANILA, Philippines – Social Watch Philippines on Friday sought the abolition of Special Purpose Funds (SPF), amounting to P310.1 billion, totally controlled by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) with the approval of President Benigno Aquino III.

In its statement released Friday, SWP said that SPFs are lump sum funds included as part of the General Appropriation Act for 2014, of which the pork barrel is part of.

“These are not as detailed and specific as the budget proposals of regular agencies. Once these are approved, they are vulnerable to reductions, transfers and ‘adjustments’ since these are lump sums,” said SWP Lead Convenor and former National Treasurer Prof. Leonor Magtolis Briones.

Briones said SPFs account for 22 percent of the proposed 2014 national budget of P1.4 trillion which is under deliberation in Congress.

“It is important to give attention to the SPFs because these are not normally debated in Congress and are less scrutinized by the public,” she said.

According to Briones, these accounts are funds managed directly by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), with the approval of the President.

“The President is allowed by the Constitution to transfer funds in his office. The current interpretation of the word ‘office’ is that it covers the entire national government,” Briones explained.

Not only have SPFs been always problematic, said Briones, “but since these are not as detailed as regular appropriations, they tend to be vulnerable to abuse. Accountability is sometimes difficult to establish and documentation likewise difficult.”

For 2014, P310.1 billion has been proposed as SPFs along with Ph139.9 billion as unprogrammed funds, for a total of P499 billion. The biggest items are Pension and Gratuity Fund of P120.5 billion, Miscellaneous Personnel Benefits Fund for P80.7 billion, Budgetary Support to Government Corporations for P46.7 billion, Allocation to Local Government Units for P19.7 billion. The PDAF budget level of P25.240 billion is just around 8 per cent of the SPF, which is proposed at P310 billion.

Briones believes there is more reason to scrutinize these funds because these are not detailed and these can be transferred easily; and the power to transfer funds was gravely abused during the previous administration. “That is why it is important to continuously campaign for the fulfillment of promises in public finance and budget reforms.”

“The Commission on Audit (COA) has already spoken that the SPFs should be removed and the budget has to demonstrate clarity and transparency. The government should follow the COA’s advice and for prudence’s sake, re-channel the funds and integrate them with the agencies. There should be no room for budgets with only general assumptions and vague details,” Briones explained.

She urged citizens to “also monitor the other larger lump sums.” The scope of citizen advocacy should expand “from a small portion of the special purpose fund, which is the pork barrel, to the whole SPF itself. In other words why not target the “queen bee” and not just some soldiers and workers?”

UP faculty call supported

Meanwhile, SWP supports the call of faculty members from the University of the Philippines for the abolition of the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), otherwise called “pork barrel.”

The call complements the seven-year campaign of SWP and the Alternative Budget Initiative (ABI) for the abolition of Special Purpose Funds (SPFs), of which the pork barrel is a part.

Convened by SWP, the ABI is a consortium of more than a hundred nongovernment organizations globally acknowledged for initiating government-citizens partnerships in formulating and lobbying for alternative budget proposals for increased allocation for social services.

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/68749/budget-group-seeks-abolition-of-aquinos-p310-b-special-purpose-funds

PDAF: How it works

By Jess Diaz 
The Philippine Star

Members of a youth group wear pig masks during a rally in Manila to denounce the misuse of the congressional pork barrel. EDD GUMBAN

MANILA, Philippines – The Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), the official name of the congressional pork barrel, is a lump sum appropriation in the national budget. For this year, it has a funding of nearly P25 billion.

It allocates P200 million a year for each senator and P70 million for each member of the House of Representatives.

The process of releasing PDAF allocations starts with a senator or congressman making a request for the release of his or her allocation. A project list accompanies the request. Projects are drawn from a menu specified in the annual budget law.

The request is sent to the Senate finance committee, in the case of a senator, or the House appropriations committee, in the case of a House member. The committee chairman endorses it to the Senate president or the Speaker, who then forwards it to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).

The DBM makes sure that the project list conforms to the menu in the budget law. It then releases the funds to the implementing agency identified by the lawmaker, who is furnished a copy of the release document known as special allotment release order (SARO).

The lawmaker is not supposed to meddle in project implementation. But in reality, as Commission on Audit (COA) Chairperson Grace Pulido-Tan said yesterday, they chose the non-government organizations (NGOs) that received their funds and implemented their projects.

Tan said the supposed implementing agencies, when they received the PDAF funds, “just turned around and transferred the money to the NGOs identified by lawmakers.”

The transfer is presumably covered by a memorandum of agreement signed among the lawmakers, their implementing agencies and their chosen NGOs.

Auditors usually conduct a post-project implementation examination. By this time, the funds had already been misused.

Budget Secretary Florencio Abad yesterday said senators and congressmen cannot escape responsibility for the misuse of their pork barrel funds.

He said ultimately, it is the lawmakers who allocated the funds and officials of the implementing agencies who have to account for the money and how the lawmakers’ projects were implemented, including their choice of NGOs, if these are the project implementers.

http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2013/08/17/1100731/pdaf-how-it-works