You would be lucky to find a Filipino who still believes Congress no longer has any pork barrel just because the Supreme Court in 2013 declared the legislators’ Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) unconstitutional.
Of course, it is no longer called PDAF today but congressional insertions, in the same manner that PDAF used to be called by other names, like CDF or Countrywide Development Fund.
Any kind of budget allocation for legislators—items that would be spent at their discretion and behest—are pork barrel funds. Essentially, these congressional insertions in any form and manner are pork barrel.
Of course, not a few legislators would be quick to disagree in a “you say tomato, I say tomato” kind of back and forth.
Sen. Panfilo Lacson said infrastructure projects submitted by the Department of Public Works and Highways to Congress contain many of these insertions even before amendments were introduced to the budget bill.
He has flagged P28.3 billion worth of such insertions in the DPWH budget for 2021.
Earlier, the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission alleged that certain congressmen were pocketing substantial commissions from the budget of anomalous DPWH infrastructure projects after influencing the award of these to their favored contractors.
Now it is up to President Duterte to approve or veto the proposed P4.5-trillion budget for 2021 with these congressional insertions included.
The President vowed to solve systemic corruption in government and named the DPWH as one of its hotbeds. This may be a good start for him to carry out his noble intention.
Lacson said he was willing to help the President identify the double and overlapping appropriations in the Congress-approved budget that are worth billions and must be vetoed.
“It is clear that questionable items such as double and overlapping appropriations should be vetoed, along with at least 793 line items for multipurpose buildings with a uniform P1-million appropriation each,” he said.
These billions could certainly be better spent on the government’s Covid response, to buy vaccines, for instance, or for an honest-to-goodness economic stimulus program. The money can actually do a lot of good. Used wisely and without corruption, the billions could be spent on much-needed but otherwise neglected government projects, those that direly need more funds during this pandemic.
Of course, the government also needs to spend on infrastructure. But we would like to see its infrastructure budget spent in a responsible manner, according to the right priorities, not just according to the whims of select government officials and politicians, even anomalously as Lacson alleges.
Corruption has long bedeviled the budget system and no less than a thorough exorcism is required.
It does not matter if congressmen would point out that they have no direct participation in the implementation of these DPWH projects for their districts—these so-called budget insertions are still pork barrel and as such they mean corruption, in particular, kickbacks, bribery, bid rigging and collusion in public bids.
The problem facing any administration, however, is that if it wants to pass its sponsored measures, including the proposed national budget, it needs to keep members of Congress happy and satisfied. And what this entails has not really been a big mystery.
This is precisely why, politically and realistically, it has been somewhat impossible to strip the national budget of pork barrel (again under various names) and force each member of Congress to vote solely on the merits of any proposed measure. Most members of Congress, as do most politicians, tend to act in their best personal interest.
But surely the tough-talking President Duterte can forge a new status quo and a different dynamic of conflict and cooperation between the executive and legislature?
We urge the President to put an end to all kinds of pork barrel corruption once and for all. He can start by purging the national budget of congressional insertions and giving the money back to the government agencies in charge of implementing basic social services such as housing, education and health.
The President won’t have the moral authority to talk about fighting corruption if his administration would continue this pork barrel system in the form of congressional insertions.