Pork by any other name?

It wasn’t too long ago that outgoing Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr. vowed that when the bicameral committee deliberates on the 2019 P3.7-trillion budget, he would ensure transparency on the claimed “pork” barrel, both in the House and in the Senate.

Sen. Panfilo Lacson, who has portrayed himself as the senator who has been exposing the “hidden” pork in the budget, also vowed transparency, saying he had asked his staff to make public the details of what he calls his “institutional” amendments he had proposed in the national budget for this year.

Lacson proposed institutional amendments to the budget to benefit sectors, including education, the environment and national security, saying there was no room for “pork” in these institutional amendments for three reasons: need, planning and vetting.

“Our taxpayers can thus sleep well knowing there is no room for pork with these institutional amendments,” Lacson said.

This is certainly a turnaround from Lacson who always called insertions in the budget as “pork” and proved to be a headache to other senators for virtually portraying some of his colleagues as being “pork” hungry. Now, what the other senators were doing by way of insertions before the budget is approved, the same style of insertions is now called “institutional” amendments which are insertions and not pork.

The real problem is that the media and other senators made “pork” a dirty national name.

Truth is, there is nothing wrong with legislators having a pork barrel, as congressmen and even senators need their pork barrel for their districts and bailiwicks. What is wrong is that some, if not many, legislators abuse their pork allocation, either by getting them for themselves or not come up with the projects or getting commissions from projects where the contractor is probably owned by relatives and, worse, inferior materials are used for the projects.

But Lacson also said he hopes the other proponents of amendments to the budget would do the same to remove speculation that the bicameral conference committee was a venue for “horse trading” and compromises among legislators.

But Andaya, who has vowed transparency, appears to have changed his mind. He said Congress may not be able to pass the proposed budget this year before the congressional adjournment next month, since senators and congressmen had a difficult time agreeing on the claimed insertions in the national budget.

The former House Majority Floor leader and now chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations stressed that he would be betraying the House leadership by having the budget bill approved without having scrutinized it thoroughly and that he would not want to do this.

But where before Andaya vowed to expose the legislators’ “insertions,” a new name for the congressional pork barrel, he now threatens to even bring the House and the Senate down if the budget is passed without a full examination of these insertions.

As he put it: “The approval of the budget bill is being rushed so as to include the anomalies that were discovered in the 2018 [national] budget,” Andaya told lawmakers during the resumption of his panel’s probe on the P75-billion budget insertions and alleged anomalous budget practices involving Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno.

“I know where the places are. If I will be forced to do it, dared to do it… I will bring this House down. If they will pass the budget without thinking, I will bring everybody down. You know it, I know it,” he stressed.

It just might be Andaya who will be brought down, considering the fact that he isn’t popular with the congressmen, as he was ousted some weeks ago as the House Majority Leader.

To this day, Andaya insists on getting Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno to bow to him and to this day, too, he continues linking Diokno to alleged anomalous practices which Andaya has failed to prove every time, as it is so clear that whatever additional funds “inserted” in the budget are certainly not criminal offenses as these are part of government budget-making.

As for the Andaya charge that Diokno ensures that billions go to his in-laws (who are certainly not his in-laws), even this Andaya can’t prove to this day.

But he isn’t stopping his life-long vendetta against Diokno.

Andaya, as head of his committee, had a show cause order issued against Diokno for his repeated failure to attend the congressional inquiry into the alleged anomalies in the proposed 2019 national budget.

The motion to issue a show cause order went unopposed after Andaya described Diokno’s continued absence in the congressional inquiry as an utter disrespect.

“We need to issue a show cause order for him to explain why he should not be cited for contempt. We are not satisfied by the statement made by the presidential spokesman that the President does not want him to attend here,” Leyte Rep. Veloso said.

Andaya will just be frustrated again. The President continues to express trust and confidence in Diokno. So, does the finance team.

There is serious doubt that President Duterte can express trust and confidence in Andaya who even threatens to bring him down.