Legislators deprioritize projects to free up space for ‘pork’ — expert
LEGISLATORS are sending big-ticket projects to unprogrammed appropriations to free up fiscal space for “pet projects” forcing economic managers to source excess funds from government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCCs), an expert said.
“This has been going on for the past three years and the reason for that is accommodation of pork,” Institute for Leadership, Empowerment, and Democracy Executive Director Zy-za Nadine N. Suzara said in a forum on Thursday.
“What they do is they put all the pork projects in the programmed appropriations, carve out that space from the program budgets of different agencies, put the priority projects in the unprogrammed appropriations, budget increases.”
These include transferred big-ticket projects of the Department of Transportation and the Department of Public Works and Highways.
Among these are the Metro Rail Transit Line 4, the Davao Public Transport Modernization Project, and the North-South Commuter Railway System.
She said the transfer of the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) excess funds was “only the tip of the iceberg.”
The Supreme Court recently issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) on the further transfer of the P89.9-billion excess funds to the National Treasury, which petitioners claimed to be in violation of the 1987 Constitution.
The TRO was issued after P60 billion in PhilHealth funds have already been transferred to the Treasury in three tranches since May.
A fourth and final tranche worth P29.9 billion was scheduled to be transferred to the Treasury in November. — Aubrey Rose A. Inosante
