MANILA, Philippines?Congress gave itself P9.665 billion in pork barrel under the P1.415-trillion budget that it approved for 2009, an increase of about P2 billion from its pork barrel last year.
Pork barrel finances the pet projects of legislators. It is believed to be a major source of kickbacks for lawmakers.
The House of Representatives ratified the final version of the proposed budget for this year on Wednesday night and the Senate did likewise Thursday morning.
The initial version of the House budget bill allocated P6.24 billion for the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), popularly known as the pork barrel. The Senate version of the measure recommended P7.3 billion.
But after the bicameral conference committee came out with its report, the amount ballooned to P9.665 billion. The PDAF in 2008 was P7.9 billion.
Each House member is usually allocated P70 million in PDAF annually, and each senator, P200 million.
In the Senate, during the special session Thursday to ratify the budget, Senators Panfilo Lacson and Benigno ?Noynoy? Aquino III cast negative votes due to questionable realignments from debt service?P35.3 billion?to fund programs under the ?economic stimulus fund.?
Funding from the rest of the P50-billion stimulus fund will be taken from other departments. The House said the stimulus fund amounted to P56.1 billion, but the Senate said it was P50 billion.
P6-billion difference
Quirino Rep. Junie Cua, chair of the House appropriations committee, said the P6-billion difference in the stimulus package cited by the House and Senate came about because he and Sen. Edgardo Angara, chair of the Senate finance committee, failed to define what constitutes a stimulus fund.
Opposition Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano and his elder sister, Pia, signed the committee report, which was circulated starting Wednesday, ?with reservations? owing to the questionable realignments in the budget.
Both Senators Panfilo Lacson and Manuel ?Mar? Roxas II opted to give up their PDAF this year, while Senators Ana Consuelo ?Jamby? Madrigal and Antonio Trillanes IV said they would only get half of their pork barrel.
Roxas has not received any of his PDAF allocation since the latter half of 2005 after the Liberal Party which he heads withdrew its support for the Arroyo administration at the height of the ?Hello, Garci? wiretapping scandal.
Roxas and Lacson
Roxas requested Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile that his PDAF be given to the Department of Trade and Industry for small and micro-lending facilities to generate more small and medium businesses in the rural areas and create more jobs.
Lacson, who has not used his PDAF allocation since 2002, objected to the motion to have the bicameral report ratified because of the cut in the budget for debt service.
Lacson noted that the national budget had a cut of P50.1 billion from debt interest payments, an off-budget item under automatic appropriations, to be realigned to regular appropriations and therefore treated as a line-budget item.
?Now, if the President vetoes the proposed cut from the debt service without deducting the same amount from the line item to which they are now re-appropriated, the 2009 GAA becomes constitutionally infirm,? he said.
Budget of agencies
Under the conference committee report ratified by both the Senate and the House, Congress also got a P7.369-billion budget, P443 million more from the initial recommendation of the House.
The Office of the President got P3.01 billion, which was P28 million more than that in the House version.
The Office of the Vice President got P180.455 million while the judiciary was allocated P12.68 billion. The unprogrammed fund amounted to P75.97 billion.
The debt interest payment was allocated P252.55 billion. The initial amount set by the House bill was P287.87 billion, but this was slashed by P35.32 billion so that the amount cut could be allocated for the economic stimulus fund, according to Cua.
Of the departments, the Department of Agrarian Reform got the biggest cut?P1.196 billion?from the bicameral conference committee, since its initial allocation was P9.064 billion.
The ones that got the biggest increases from the committee were the Department of Public Works and Highways and the Department of Transportation and Communications, with P9.359 billion and P3.835 billion, respectively.
The budget also has a specific economic stimulus fund that was allocated P10.07 billion, and this would go to the Financial Assistance for Talinong Pinoy Program; the Education and Skills Development Training Programs for Kabataang Pinoy.
Training Assistance for Laid Off Workers and Financial Assistance to Small and Medium Enterprises; Construction of Classrooms/School buildings; Provision for Drugs and Medicines and supplies for Telehealth Services in Far Flung Areas; Food Production; the Bantay Kalikasan and Bantay Dagat Programs; and the Recycling of Agricultural and Forest Waste Products.
What line agencies got
Among the line agencies, the Department of Education (DepEd) got the biggest share of the pie, with a P158.21 billion budget. State universities and colleges got a separate P22.829 billion and the DepEd School Building Program another P2 billion.
The rest of the departments got the following:
Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) ?P129.89 billion
Department of Interior and Local Government?P62.937 billion
Department of National Defense?P56.48 billion
Department of Health? P27.876 billion
Department of Transportation and Communication (DOTC)?P25.002 billion
Department of Foreign Affairs?P12.598 billion
Department of Finance?P12.587 billion
Department of Environment and Natural Resources? P12.39 billion
Department of Social Welfare and Development?P10.62 billion
Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR)?P7.868 billion
Department of Justice? P7.06 billion
Department of Labor and Employment?P7.01 billion
Department of Science and Technology?P5.675 billion
Department of Agriculture?P3.615 billion
Department of Trade and Industry?P2.925 billion
Department of Tourism? P2.002 billion
Department of Budget and Management?P821 million
Department of Energy? P591 million
