Abad: 2016 budget is pork-free

Budget Secretary Florencio Abad. Photo courtesy of the World Economic Forum 2014 / Fotopedia

MANILA — Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said that the 2016 national budget submitted by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) is free of pork barrel funds.

He added that there are no hidden pork barrel funds in the budget, which could be used by lawmakers to pet their projects and get kickbacks.

“There’s no more pork in this budget,” he said.

This is contrary to Sen. Panfilo Lacson’s earlier claims that lump-sum or discretionary funds could still be found in the budget.

The budget secretary said the Supreme Court already has “prohibited the creation of lump sums, in which after a budget is enacted, the senators or congressmen are allowed to identify where the lump sums go.”

He defined lump sum as “one big fund without any disaggregation, with no specific projects or places identified.”

“Over the years, we have been trying to disaggregate and reduce the lump sums in budget in the interest of promoting greater transparency and accountability,” he said.

Among the agencies who got the largest share in the budget are:

Department of Education, P435.9 billion

Department of Public Works and Highways, P394.5 billion

Department of National Defense, P172.7 billion

Department of the Interior and Local Government, P154.5 billion

Department of Health, P128.4 billion

Department of Social Welfare and Development, P104.2 billion

Department of Agriculture, P93.4 billion

Department of Finance, P55.3 billion

Department of Transportation and Communication, P49.3 billion

Department of Environment and Natural Resources, P25.8 billion

Department of Science and Technology, P18.6 billion

Abad also described the budget as a “legacy budget” and not an “election budget.”

“The campaign period for national positions starts in February. If we’re going to use this budget all in January, that’s impossible,” he said.

“Even the procurement process takes four to six months, so with the election ban, how can you fully utilize the budget? You can only fully utilize the budget after the elections … So it’s very tight. So those claiming this will be used for the elections should look at that,” Abad said.