Manila, Philippines – Amid the ongoing investigation related to the ghost and substandard flood control projects, among the issues revealed were fund anomalies and corruption within government, in which some lawmakers were allegedly linked.
To avoid further corruption issues on all infrastructure projects, Senate Pro-Tempore Panfilo “Ping” Lacson eyes a ban of insertions on the Philippine budget.
In an interview on Sunday, Lacson condemned the budget insertions of what he described as greedy lawmakers, which is the root cause of corruption in the country.
“Lawmakers simply must not meddle in infrastructure projects because that is the root of this massive corruption,”
“If we analyze the situation, Congress starts the corruption because of numerous insertions involving hundreds of billions of pesos.” Lacson said.
For Lacson, both Houses of Congress, Senate and House of Representatives, must agree to not have budget insertions.
Instead, lawmakers should focus on institutional amendments to provide additional funds for agencies that need more support in funding.
Regarding unprogrammed appropriations, Lacson urged the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to be more careful in their recommendations to the President in the use of unprogrammed funds.
Lacson agreed with Senate Committee on Finance’ Chairperson Senator Win Gatchalian that if unprogrammed funds were not monitored, it may be pork barrel in the end.
Despite the concerns, Lacson believes that it is still early to remove unprogrammed funds in the national budget, arguing that it still needs further study: “We must study this because removing the unprogrammed funds altogether may affect foreign-assisted projects that need augmentation. Big-ticket projects may be affected because if local funding is lacking, the President needs to get funds from the Special Purpose Fund under the unprogrammed funds.”