MANILA – President Rodrigo Duterte wants House Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to explain the billions of pesos of alleged “pork barrel” insertions in the proposed P3.757-trillion national budget for 2019, Malacañang said Monday.
“He (Duterte) said that there must be some explanation on the part of Speaker Arroyo and the others, let’s hear them,” Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo told Palace reporters.
Panelo said Arroyo reached out to him via text message to explain the controversial insertions.
“Their explanation is that, contrary to the allegation of pork barrel, they said that this time, there were items and these items were given by different agencies and it was prior to the approval, they’ve been there. Unlike the pork barrel lump sum where there is no specific item where it will go,” the spokesman explained.
Meanwhile Malacañang is deferring to Budget secretary Benjamin Diokno to respond to claims that the insertions actually came from the executive department. Diokno is set to appear at the House of Representatives on Tuesday.
“Budget secretary Diokno has been invited to explain. So we leave it at that. We’ll see,” Panelo said.
House Majority Leader Rolando Andaya Jr. has admitted Arroyo promised a P60 million allotment for each lawmaker but insisted that these were not pork barrel, which was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in a landmark ruling in 2013.
He told radio dzMM that it was the House appropriations committee, not Arroyo, that is responsible for the P4.3 billion alleged pork barrel in the proposed 2019 national budget.
He said the committee may have displayed “misplaced generosity” when it granted the requests of the Public Works department’s regional directors for funding for flood control projects in Pampanga and road projects in Camarines Sur.
Meanwhile Diokno denied on Monday the allegations that there were insertions in the proposed 2019 national budget.
Earlier Sen. Panfilo Lacson said at least two lawmakers cornered a bulk of congressional insertions under the General Appropriations Bill for 2019.
Diokno said the House of Representatives can revise or realign budget allocations.
“There are no insertions, I can say that,” Diokno said. Allocations can be considered pork barrel if lawmakers meddle in project implementation, he said.
Diokno also allayed fears on the size of the country’s debt as raised by Lacson. He said the country’s debt-to-GDP (gross domestic product) ratio of about 40 percent is “better than the usual requirement of 60 percent.”
“We are in a very good shape to borrow money,” Diokno said.
Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri earlier said the Senate was looking at 14-hour session days to deliberate on the proposed 2019 budget to approve it before the year ends. (ABS-CBN News)
