Mabuti pa sila

BEHIND THE SCENES

Alfred P. Dizon

I was talking to a bank manager and she was saying how hard life is nowadays despite rosy government pronouncements that this country’s economic growth is doing well. 

“Mabuti pa sila,” she said, “they have all the money for the taking.” She was referring of course to government officials who have been reported as pocketing taxpayers’ money worth billions of pesos as exposed in the Janet Napoles scams, and of course reports of government corruption the ;past adminisitrations.

Now, amid public outrage over the pork barrel system, the House of Representatives said it has formally “removed” a total of P25.4 billion in the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) from the P2.268-trillion national budget for next year.

But the House members chose not to touch the P450-billion “special purpose funds”—which critics have referred to as the President’s own pork barrel— when they passed the budget bill on second reading last week.

During deliberations, it was noted the presidential pork barrel was in the neighborhood of P964 billion.

Speaker Feliciano Belmonte said the House has moved to abolish the PDAF to stop abuse of the same. The decision to scrap the PDAF and realign it to six key government agencies came more than a month after the Million People March on Aug. 26, which set off a series of protest actions against the pork barrel system.

Three senators and several House representatives are facing plunder charges before the Ombudsman for the alleged misuse of their PDAF allocations, a racket that came to light following a series of exposes by newspapers.

But minority congressmen doubted that the pork barrel has indeed been eliminated.

Under the system, a total of P25.2 billion in PDAF, plus Vice President Jejomar Binay’s P200-million pork barrel, will now go to education, health care, employment support, infrastructure and “assistance to persons in crisis.”

Of the total, the Department of Health and Department of Labor and Employment will each get P3.691 billion, while the Department of Social Welfare and Development will receive P4.713 billion.

The Commission on Higher Education will now have P2.669 billion for scholarship programs and the Department of Education, P1.022 billion.

The biggest slice of P25.2 billion, or P9.954 billion, will go to the Department of Public Works and Highways, for the implementation of infrastructure projects to be “recommended” by congressmen following a new “menu.”

The new guidelines limit such projects to local roads and bridges, classrooms or academic buildings, multipurpose buildings and water supply systems. All but party-list representatives can propose infrastructure projects only within their respective districts.

Congressmen were asked to “propose” up to five infrastructure projects, each with a budget ceiling of P24.5 million per legislator. Each project should amount to no less than P2 million and the list ought to have been submitted by Sept. 25.

A five-man committee was formed to receive amendments, mostly specific infrastructure projects, to be itemized in the budget bill before it is considered for third reading on Oct. 14.

Under the new system, it would appear that congressmen have lost their discretion over “soft projects,” like scholarships and medical assistance programs.

Eastern Samar Rep. Ben Evardone, vice chair of the appropriations committee, earlier said that legislators would not be “at the mercy” of Cabinet members, who would supposedly have the final say on such projects. He said agencies may be required to submit quarterly reports so congressmen could know how their old PDAF was not being spent.

With congressional pork having been moved to the regular budget, some congressmen said they cannot accept the retention of the P1-trillion pork barrel of President Aquino in the 2014 budget without clear-cut guidelines and details on what and how will it be spent.

The Makabayan bloc had assailed the “special purpose fund (SPF),” of which the P25.2-billion congressional PDAF was only about 5.5 percent. At almost P450 billion, the SPF is about a fifth of the entire national budge

Now comes the secret of the existence of the Disbursement Acceleration Program exposed.

Malacanang admitted the multi-billion fund following allegations of Sen. Jinggoy Estrada that senators who voted in favor of ousting former Chief Justice Renato Corona were given an average of P50 million each by the Palace.

The tales of fund releases and corruption are unfolding by the day as exposed by the media even as we write.

This, as poor folks have to pay their taxes and other government fees or suffer penalties or even imprisonment. I know one who rents a stall in Baguio City who was recently arrested for being delayed in paying the Social Security System (SSS) of her only employee  amounting to P16,000, but that is another story.    

The bank manager I talked to was right. Indeed, mabuti pa sila. They have all the money for the taking.