Osmeña reveals P2B pork barrel for selected senators in 2015 budget

Senator Sergio Osmeña III (Facebook photo)

MANILA – According to Senator Sergio Osmeña III, several senators were still allotted pork barrel funds of at least P200 million to P2 billion from the 2015 General Appropriations Act (GAA). These were intended to be used for projects on different agencies.

“I think they have the right to identify up to P200 million. There are those with P1 billion. Others have P2 billion … Just don’t ask me to identify anymore,” Osmeña said in a Philippine Daily Inquirer report, adding that he did not accept any fund from this year’s budget.

Furthermore, Osmeña also disclosed that even the 2016 GAA proposed a P3 trillion budget for lump-sum funds.

“If there’s no pork, [the President’s] pet bills won’t be passed in Congress… That is how the President controls Congress,” he said.

Senate President Franklin Drilon, however, asserted that he did not request for any pork barrel fund in the 2015 or 2016 GAA for any pet project.

“One thing I can tell you. I don’t have a single lump-sum insertion and I have not inserted anything in the budget that I have nominated. None. Not a single peso,” Drilon said.

Discretionary funds

It can be recalled that it was Senator Panfilo Lacson who first disclosed that the 2015 national budget still had pork barrel funds worth P424 billion or higher for 11 selected government agencies. He feared that, although supposedly intended for projects, these funds were prone to misappropriation.

Lacson would then question the Supreme Court (SC) for the legality of discretionary funds from the national budget. The SC earlier declared the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) and Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) as unconstitutional.

The PDAF and the DAP, both pork barrel funds, were initially intended to ‘fast-track public spending and push economic growth’ through programs and projects.

However, these funds were also allegedly sources of commissions of tens of millions of pesos for several lawmakers from their pet projects.

Before the SC ruled that the PDAF and DAP were unconstitutional, each senator was allotted P200 million and a congressman was given P70 million.

“They (Congress and Department of Budget and Management (DBM)) violated the Supreme Court ruling by not itemizing it in the budget. It should be itemized,” Osmeña said, referring to the PDAF and DAP funds.