VP Noli has share of ‘pork’ in proposed 2007 budget

Vice President Noli de Castro has not been left out in the distribution of pork barrel funds that are included in President Arroyo’s proposed P1.136-trillion national budget for next year.

He will have nearly P30 million in such funds. The amount forms part of his P128.3 million 2007 budget, which the House appropriations committee chaired by Albay Rep. Joey Salceda approved this year.

Of the P128.3 million appropriated for De Castro, P29.4 million is for "subsidies and donations."

According to a briefing paper he submitted to Salceda’s committee, the vice president intends to use his allocation for subsidies and donations "to address the requests for assistance on basic social needs" of his constituents.

He informed the committee that from 2004 to 2006, the number of people he helped with taxpayers’ money averaged 28,000 a year.

His briefing paper stated that his constituents’ needs ranged from "medical (hospitalization, medicine, and other medical and surgical procedure), economic (food and shelter), employment, education, transportation, burial, housing, and other family problems."

Lawmakers respond to similar requests for help by using their pork barrel funds. Financial assistance, however, is limited to hospitalization and medicines, and scholarships.

The funds do not go directly to the beneficiaries but to government hospitals and schools, to which persons seeking the lawmakers’ help are referred. In their referral letters, the lawmakers fix the amount of help to be charged against their funds.

In Metro Manila, hospitals that are appropriated pork barrel funds include Philippine Heart Center, National Kidney Institute, Lung Center, and Children’s Medical Center.

Food, transportation and burial assistance are not allowed. Lawmakers have to dig into their own pockets for these contributions. Apparently, the appropriations law is lenient on De Castro.

The vice president’s 2007 budget also includes P8.5 million for travel, P9.6 million for representation, P4.6 million for communication expenses and P16.6 million for consultants.

The nation’s No. 2 official has P6 million in intelligence funds.

But his pork barrel and intelligence allocations are just a drop in the bucket compared to similar appropriations available to President Arroyo and his former colleagues in the Senate.

Mrs. Arroyo has an annual intelligence budget of P650 million and has at her disposal billions in pork barrel funds.

Each senator’s pork barrel dispenses P200 million, the amount allocated to De Castro when he was a member of the Senate. On the other hand, each House member has P70 million.

Next year, it would cost taxpayers P21.3 billion to fund the congressional pork barrel.

DBM says govt has cash but spending is limited

Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya Jr. boasted yesterday that government has so much money but lamented that they could not spend more for public projects because the current reenacted budget had put limits on spending.

"The government is awash with so much cash that it (money) is even coming out of my socks," Andaya jokingly told reporters.

He said there is so much cash but the government has very limited authority to spend because of the reenacted budget.

"We now have the money but we also have spending limits unless the new budget is passed," Andaya said.

The Arroyo administration has attributed the government’s improved cash flow to the successful implementation of the Expanded Value Added Tax, the efficient tax collection, and the stronger peso.

Andaya, who arrived here for the launching of the budget department’s PX commissary in Southern Mindanao, expressed hope that Congress would immediately pass the proposed P1.13 trillion 2007 national budget so that government can implement new projects.

In a reenacted budget, similar to the current budget, the government will automatically use the 2006 national budget but no new allocations can be made for new projects. Only old projects with allocation from the previous year’s budget, can be implemented.

Differences between the House of Representatives and the Senate on budget allocations have resulted in a deadlock and the failure of lawmakers to pass the 2006 budget.

He said a reenacted budget means more problems, that is why Congress should pass the proposed 2007 budget before Jan. 2, 2007.

"Government has learned from the lessons brought about by reenacted budgets in the past. It is learning from past experience on the effects of a reenacted budget which doesn’t really do any good," Andaya explained.

Andaya, however, was elated when the Senate passed early this week the P46.5 billion supplemental budget which will help fill up the gap in spending requirements brought about by the reenacted 2006 budget.

"It is some kind of a reality check since the reenacted budget also affected the senators and the congressmen themselves," Andaya added.

The proposed 2007 budget includes the restoration of at least P21.3 billion in congressional pork barrel funds for the Senate and the House.

The 2007 budget will allocate P70 million for each congressman and P200 million for each senator in pork barrel funds.

Andaya expressed hope that with the approval of the supplemental budget, the 2007 budget will also be passed before the year ends. — Edith Regalado