Pork with new collar

Graft busters and budget watchdogs have pointed to the similarities with the past effort to cobble together excess funds to create the unconstitutional Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) and bankroll unprogrammed projects.

The only difference now is the accumulated amount from the budget is coursed through the National Treasury before going to the implementing agencies.

Under the DAP, the savings went to the Palace’s money pool before being distributed to agencies.

The intent of the Supreme Court (SC) decisions against the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) in 2013 and the DAP in 2014 was to stop the pork barrel system which had been abused by both the executive and legislative branches.

This time, PhilHealth has reported that it had transferred P30 billion of its P89.9 billion labeled as excess funds to the National Treasury.

In a circular, Finance Secretary Ralph Recto ordered state institutions like the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (PhilHealth) to surrender their excess funds to the National Treasury.

A budget guardian said the common denominator of the reallocations was the creation of lump sums in line with the characteristics of the DAP and the pork barrel system.

The resurrection of the discretionary funds is being done through the relabeling of savings.

The legislative pork is also very much alive through insertions in the budget which was also meant to go around the SC ruling declaring the PDAF unconstitutional.

Regarding the DAP, the High Tribunal declared unconstitutional certain methods for creating the Palace money pool.

The exact wording in the ruling on the illegal Palace acts goes:

• The withdrawal of unobligated allotments from the implementing agencies and the declaration of the withdrawn unobligated allotments and unreleased appropriations as savings prior to the end of the fiscal year and without complying with the statutory definition of savings contained in the General Appropriations Act;

• Cross-border transfers of savings of the executive department to offices outside the executive department; and

• Funding of projects, activities, and programs not covered by appropriations in the General Appropriations Act.

The Court also declared void the use of unprogrammed funds without a certification by the National Treasurer that tax collections exceeded revenue targets.

The SC’s twin rulings were a clear indictment of discretionary or lump-sum funds.

The PDAF or pork barrel, which was funded with P24 billion yearly in the budget, was part of the huge Special Purpose Fund which in turn was just one of the many lump sums that made up as much as a third of the yearly budget.

The ruling was consistent with the public clamor to remove all types of lump-sum items in the national budget.

The SC’s stand against the resurrection of the pork barrel system in any form restored the dignity of the budget law.

The sinister character of discretionary funds was underlined in the P50-million bribe distributed to each senator-judge who voted to convict Chief Justice Renato Corona in the impeachment court that resulted in his ouster.

The renaming of the practice in the executive branch to create lump sums, such as calling savings excess funds, does not change the invalid nature of the act based on the SC’s intent to slay the pork barrel system.