ALBAY Rep. Edcel Lagman yesterday said the House leadership’s Charter change (Cha-cha) campaign through a people’s initiative has a P14 billion allocation in the P5.768 trillion national budget for 2024, an allegation which was immediately denied by the chairperson of the House Committee on Appropriations who called it “malicious” and “irresponsible.”
Lagman, a leader of the opposition who is a member of the Liberal Party, said the appropriations for Cha-cha activities in the 2023 General Appropriations Act (GAA) was only P2 billion, but this was allegedly increased by about 700 percent this year.
“The Charter change rampage has a surfeit of funds. Embedded in the 2024 General Appropriations Act is the total amount of about P14B for the ‘conduct and supervision of elections, referenda, recall votes and plebiscites,’ P12B of which was inserted by the bicameral conference committee under the budget of the Commission of Elections,” Lagman said in a statement.
He noted that the P14 billion allocation is bigger than the P9,896,172,000 appropriation of the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW); P8,638,218,000 of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI); P8,081,067,000 of the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR); P5,5334,721,000 of the Office of the Ombudsman; P3,439,715,000 of the Department of Tourism (DOT); and P3,307,520,000 of the the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DSHUD).
Rep. Zaldy Co (PL, Ako Bicol), chairperson of the House Committee on Appropriations, lashed out at Lagman for “falsely claiming that an additional P12billion budget of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) ‘for the conduct and supervision of elections’ will be used to finance charter change.”
Co said Lagman “maliciously makes it appear that the (budget bicameral panel) whimsically added P12billion to Comelec’s budget to finance Charter Change.”
“This is another one of his (Lagman’s) wild and irresponsible accusations,” he said.
Co said the P12 billion added to Comelec’s P2 billion budget was made upon the request of the poll body after its proposed P19.4 billion budget in the 2024 National Expenditure Program (NEP) was slashed by P17.4 billion by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) before submission to Congress.
“Comelec chairman George Garcia personally appealed during the budget hearing in Congress to restore their budget. Congressman Caraps Paduano (Rep. Joseph Steven, PL, Abang Lingkod), who presided over that meeting, attests that such request was approved by the committee and reflected in the minutes. Was Congressman Lagman sleeping on the job that he missed it?” Co said.
The appropriations committee chair added that only P14 billion, and not the entire P19.4 billion originally requested by the Comelec, was approved and the balance of P5.4 billion was included in the unprogrammed funds for future funding.
“Laking pasasalamat pa nga ng Comelec and chairman George Garcia to the bicam team for accommodating their request. Maski sila pa ang tanungin nyo (The Comelec and chairman George Garcia was so grateful to the bicam team for accommodating their request. You can ask them),” Co said.
Co dared Lagman to show and prove how Comelec’s P14 billion — or even part of it — would be used to push or finance proposed amendments to the 1987 Constitution.
“This is Comelec’s budget. No other agency, not even Congress, can touch or release even one centavo of it. Is Congressman Lagman saying that Comelec commissioners would use those funds for Charter change? If he can’t prove it, then he better shut up,” he said.
Co said that in the regular course of business, Comelec receives annual appropriations for its operations and to supervise the conduct of elections, or special referendums like the recent defeated cityhood proposal of San Jose del Monte.
He said lawmakers who pass away or get removed from office also need to be replaced, hence the need for special election funds.
“Districts who lose representation for one reason or another deserve to have special elections where they can choose their leaders. That’s the purpose of the budget for the ‘conduct and supervision of elections, referenda, recall votes and plebiscites,’” Co said.
NAME CALLING
Lagman said Co “must stop calling me names and becoming personal” and stressed that his colleague “must stick to the facts and the truth” that P12 billion was inserted by the bicameral conference committee in the 2024 Comelec’s budget for “plebiscites.”
“How could I be sleeping on the job when the insertion was made by the bicameral conference committee of which I was not appointed as a member after years of being a conferee as former chair of the appropriations committee?” he said.
Lagman belied Co’s claim that Garcia requested for the P12 billion augmentation for the subject activities, including the plebiscites for Charter change.
“I have asked chairman Garcia, through a mutual friend, whether he requested this huge increase, and he said no,” he said.
Lagman said what Garcia requested to be restored “was inadequately given back to the Comelec and what was inserted was for the subject exorbitant augmentation, which he did not request.”
“Chairman Co must be man enough to admit candidly this furtive and malevolent insertion,” he said.
He maintained that the P12 billion insertion was not in response to the Comelec’s request to restore its budget, which was reduced in the submission of the NEP to Congress.
“What was given to Comelec was not requested by it in the form of additional appropriation for the Charter change agenda,” he said.
SIGNATURE BUYING
Lagman, who earlier accused administration lawmakers of “buying” signatures for the people’s initiative petition to amend the Constitution, said the Comelec should investigate his allegation.
Last Saturday, Lagman said congressmen from the supermajority coalition have already launched a campaign for Charter change via a people’s initiative and bared that municipal mayors in Albay were notified of a general meeting last Friday by the League of Mayors of the province with an undisclosed agenda.
During the meeting, he alleged the attendees were supposedly informed that people’s initiative will be used as a mode of amending the Constitution and they were given mobilization funds and forms to be signed by at least three percent of the registered voters in the legislative district to which their municipalities belong.
Lagman claimed that voters who would sign the petition will be given P100 each, “50 percent of which has already been advanced to the municipal mayors and respective coordinators.”
“Include also the Comelec among the agencies to make the probe,” he said in reaction to the call of Senate minority leader Aquilino Pimentel III for authorities to conduct an investigation on the alleged buying of signatures.
Pimentel said the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), PNP, National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), Congress, and interested non-government organizations should look into Lagman’s claim.
“We need more investigative work. But if indeed the signatures were paid for, then the people’s initiative petition is not from the people, but is the initiative of the source of the money which could be commercial or some vested selfish interest,” Pimentel said in a message to the media.
He said anything of value in exchange for a signature “can be considered a bribe.”
“A bribed initiative is not the peoples’ spontaneous initiative,” he stressed.
Sen. Imee Marcos has earlier said that she has information that congressmen and LGU executives in the Ilocos region, Central Visayas, Leyte, and Bicol region were given up to January 13 to produce the signatures of at least three percent of their respective registered voters for the petition. Each signatory, she added, will be paid P100. — With Raymond Africa
