Drilon blew his chance — Lacson

By Ernie Reyes (InterAksyon.com)

The Senate had a singular opportunity to bury pork barrel and its evils over a decade ago, but then Senate President Franklin Drilon quickly adjourned a crucial session without allowing further debate that would have put on record and put to a vote a motion by Sen. Panfilo Lacson to totally scrap it.Lacson himself shared his recollection of that crucial session in a speech before the Philippine Constitution Association (Philconsa), one of the petitioners asking the Supreme Court to strike down as unconstitutional the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), a little known form of pork barrel that allows the Executive branch to play around with billions of pesos tagged “savings” but are actually the unreleased appropriations for projects that were not pursued.

The savings are then realigned by the Executive to other projects beyond the pale of lawmakers, thus subverting the constitutional mandate of the legislature to oversee the public purse, contend the petitioners.

Lacson said he could still remember when he felt rebuffed by his colleagues when he delivered a scathing privilege speech against the pork barrel system in 2003.

“As soon as I finished my speech with the usual, ‘Thank you, Mr. Senate President, I now yield the floor for interpellations ?’ what I heard was the banging of the gavel by the presiding officer, then Senate President Franklin Drilon, followed by a curt, ‘Session suspended.”

“I thought I would have a momentary breathing spell to review my notes as I returned to my seat. Not a minute longer, the Senate President declared the resumption of session. As I walked towards the podium, I heard another banging of the gavel followed by a loud, “Session adjourned’!” narrated the former senator.

“That was it. No interpellations or debate, no referral to any senate committee, and therefore, no resolution to the arguments that I posited in that privilege speech. From that time on, I started to believe—democracy is not always right. The ‘rule of the majority’ principle is not always a principled phraseology,” he said.

Giving incentives to solons not new

In his speech, Lacson said that allocating extra pork barrel sums to lawmakers, ostensibly sourced from “savings,” to make them do the Palace’s bidding—in this case, P300-M on top of P200-M annual pork barrel to senators—is not a new practice. It was done during the administration of former President, now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo in 2006.
Appreciating this context, Lacson said now the public could understand why not availing of any Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) or the so-called pork barrel was the right thing to do for him.

“Indeed, God works in many mysterious ways,” he said.

He recalled that golden chance that eluded the Senate to rid itself of the evil that in recent months has exploded in its face: Senate President Franklin Drilon and former Senator Manny Villar shared the Senate leadership, where the former ended his term in the first half of 2006 and the latter, on the second half until 2007.

Lacson said he felt vindicated over his decision not to avail himself of any pork barrel allocation during his stint as a lawmaker. Apart from Lacson, former Senator Joker Arroyo also declined accepting their P200-million annual pork barrel allotment.

“The pork barrel system is ugly, more often than not, cruel, sometimes merciless towards the people we all swore to serve and protect when we took our oath of office,” Lacson said.

“I learned of it with my own eyes and with my own ears. I’ve known about it firsthand. I participated and objected to it in caucuses and during plenary debates on the Senate floor, even in bicameral conferences,” Lacson said.

He recalled that in 2006, senators were called to a caucus to decide on what to do with the more than P38-billion in Special Purpose Funds (SPF), or lump sum funds at the time of President Arroyo.

At that time, he said, he agreed to a suggestion to slash a substantial portion of that fund. Though the idea was good, somebody also sought to re-allocate the deducted amount to the pork barrel of legislators with P300-million each in addition to the regular P200-million pork barrel of senators.

According to Lacson, he loudly objected to it but without his knowledge, the senators held a second caucus on the same subject.

One Thursday afternoon of the same year, Lacson said he learned of an additional P200-million additional pork barrel from the realigned SPF.

“While our small eating club composed of a few opposition politicians, businessmen, political analysts and advertising people [was gathered], then Congressman Alan Peter Cayetano requested thru former political adviser to President Erap (Estrada), Lito Banayo, that I allocate P50-million to Taguig out of our additional P200M from the realigned special purpose funds,” he said.

“Apparently, Congressman Alan got wind of the information from his ate [elder sister], Sen Pia Cayetano,” Lacson said.

Thus it was that he got wind of that crucial “secret” of his colleagues: from the P300M that was not approved because of his objection, they had, apparently out of shame, cut it down to P200M and approved it in a second caucus that he was not informed of.

Lacson said he lost no time confronting the finance committee chairman and the Senate president at that time and “threatened them that I would go to town on that issue and would not stop interpellating on the Senate floor all the way to the period of amendments until the P4.6-billion in additional PDAF of 23 senators disappears from the proposed GAA.”

He went on: “A few more intervening events transpired afterwards, but to make the long story short, the P200M additional pork for each of the 23 senators did not materialize. Needless to say, I was the bad, kill-joy, corny kontrabida,” he added.

‘Hundred more stories on pork’

 According to Lacson, there a “hundred more stories of similar nature,” done collectively and individually to fatten individual pork barrel allocations, from the committee hearings to the period of amendments all the way to the bicameral conferences—“P200-million minimum for senators and P70-million for congressmen.”

The smarter ones, he said, manage to wangle as early as during the committee hearings held to tackle the budgets of departments and agencies; likewise during plenary debates when questions are addressed by individual legislators to heads of the different agencies thru the budget sponsors.

By Ernie Reyes

InterAksyon.com