MANILA, Philippines - With only one month remaining in their three-year term as members of the 15th Congress, the two congressmen-sons of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and two allies remain “pork-less.â€
Malacañang has not released even a peso of the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) allocations of Representatives Diosdado Arroyo of Camarines Sur, his brother Juan Miguel who represents the party-list group Ang Galing Pinoy, Mitos Magsaysay of Zambales, and Augusto Syjuco Jr. of Iloilo.
PDAF is the official name of the congressional pork barrel.
It allocates P200 million per year for each senator, and P70 million a year for each member of the House of Representatives.
The two Arroyos, Magsaysay and Syjuco have not been receiving their allocations since 2011.
Malacañang officials have said the funds were being released directly to their districts or constituents.
The former president, on the other hand, has been getting her share of PDAF. She has so far received P33.8 million this year.
Out of her allocation, she shared P3.5 million with the district of her son Diosdado, and P1 million to Magsaysay’s scholars. She has won a second term as representative of Pampanga’s second district despite being detained in a government hospital on a plunder charge.
Like his mother, Diosdado was re-elected, beating outgoing Camarines Sur Gov. Luis Ray Villafuerte.
Magsaysay was unsuccessful in her senatorial bid, while Syjuco lost in his district.
Syjuco is facing graft charges before the Sandiganbayan in connection with allegedly substandard and overpriced supplies he procured as Technical Education and Skills Development Authority head during the Arroyo administration.
When she was president, Mrs. Arroyo starved her political opponents of their PDAF allocations, including then Tarlac congressman and later Sen. Benigno Aquino III.
The Department of Budget and Management website shows that in 2009, no PDAF funds were credited to then senators Aquino and Mar Roxas, who ran for president and vice president, respectively, in the 2010 elections.
The biggest pork barrel fund recipients in 2009 were Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, P727 million; Edgardo Angara, P405 million; Ramon Revilla Jr., P266 million; Jinggoy Estrada, P191 million; and Miriam Defensor-Santiago, P150 million.