A MILITANT lawmaker has questioned the government’s decision to spend P30 million to develop a “bat cave” in Davao del Sur, P150 million to construct a cruise port in Legazpi City and a P70 million for a sports facility with a swimming pool in Sorsogon in the face of the raging COVID-19 pandemic.
Rep. Carlos Zarate (PL, Bayan Muna) made the revelation during the plenary deliberations on the proposed P5.024 trillion proposed national budget for 2022 last Tuesday, saying the budget was part of the P10.3 billion unused contingency funds which he said was questionably transferred to the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and used for non-COVID related and non-essential new projects.
“For God’s sake, is Batman more important than those who are starving and sick of COVID?
What’s worse is they twisted the law to be able to use the budget for non-essential items,” he told the plenary in Filipino.
Zarate likened the use of the unused funds to the unconstitutional Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), which he said also makes the expenditures “illegal.”
He was referring to the Department of Budget and Management’s (DBM) mechanism to support high-impact and priority programs and projects using savings and unprogrammed funds during the Aquino administration.
“It now appears that the executive tried to do some budget contortions or even legal engineering to justify this use of the funds supposedly coming from the Contingent Fund, but the Constitution is clear: government can only augment funds for items already in the General Appropriations Act (GAA). While some new items can be funded by the Contingent Fund, these are more for unexpected expenses like travel expenses for the president or penalties arising from court decisions,” he said.
Albay Rep. Joey Salceda, who was among the sponsors of the proposed 2022 budget, said the issues are different.
“I don’t see, I don’t smell, I don’t taste DAP,” he said, insisting that the expenses were certified by officials as “authorized by our Constitution to determine what is contingent, what is new and urgent.”
Zarate said the DBM’s National Budget Circular 586 and its Administrative Order 41 are also unconstitutional, even illegal, because it forces departments and agencies to declare forced savings not even at the middle of the year, at the same time that the Bayanihan 2 and the GAA of 2020 are still being implemented.
He said the circular and the memo creates “DAP-like funds that the executive may use wherever it pleases him, making it a form of pork barrel, especially during election time.”
“With this budgetary and legal calisthenics, the President or DBM Secretary may have violated the penal provisions of the GAA, the Constitution and even under the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act because under this law, irregularities, inefficiencies or improper actions should be punished. By sneaking in pork barrel and DAP-like projects in the budget during a raging national health emergency, these officials should be made accountable,” said Zarate.
Zarate said the issue is a prime example why the national savings should always be posted at the DBM website and reported to Congress.
“They (Executive) are using funds at their leisure without Congress’ approval thereby impinging on Congress’ power of the purse,” said the Deputy Minority leader.
Aside from the bat cave and cruise port, Zarate said the P10.3 billion funds were also used for the following: construction of sports facilities including swimming pool, bleachers, and restroom in Casiguran, Sorsogon (P70 million); convention center capitol compound in the Cagayan Valley region (P100 million), DPWH Las Piñas-Muntinlupa office (P100 million), three-story Presidential Security Group (PSG) multipurpose building at Malacañang Park (P85.8 million), three-story instructor’s billeting area with a cafeteria at the headquarters of the Special Action Force of the PNP in Fort Santo Domingo in Santa Rosa, Laguna (P40 million), and repair and renovation of Landbank 1 Building on Gil Puyat Avenue in Makati several projects in Leyte, including P30 million for feasibility studies in Central Visayas (P300 million).
Zarate also called out another “blatant violation” on the use of government savings, this time by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).
The lawmaker said he was able to uncover that the department’s claim that it reverted to the national treasury all of its P1.7 billion savings from 2017 to 2020 was a lie since an official letter from the World Bank showed that in 2018, the DENR used P83 million out of it as partial refund for “ineligible expenses.”
“The DENR’s statement is not true then that the savings it generated from 2017-2020, P1.7 billion, were all reverted back to the treasury because portions of it were used to partially to pay the WB in the amount of P83 million,” he said.
He warned the DENR that it committed a clear violation of the GAA “and in fact can be considered as technical malversation” since the Supreme Court has ruled in Araullo vs. Aquino on DAP that savings cannot be used like that.
“Under the provisions of the GAA, use of savings is to augment actual deficiencies incurred in the current year in any item of their respective appropriation,” he said.
In the Senate, the proposed P8.1 billion budget of the Office of the President for 2022 was approved by the Senate committee on finance, chaired by Sen. Sonny Angara.
The committee likewise approved the P751.17 million proposed budget of the Presidential Management Staff.
The proposed budget of the OP next year is P8,186, 079, which is slightly lower than its P8,238, 691 budget this year. — With Ashzel Hachero
