Also uncovers ‘inequitable’ allocations for flood projects
THE 2025 national budget contains “pork barrel” fund allocations for some senators and congressmen running in the billions of pesos, Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson said late Wednesday night in a television interview.
Lacson told One News that the allocations were way beyond the allowed amounts before the Supreme Court declared the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) as unconstitutional in 2013.
He said he made the discovery while scrutinizing the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA), which he had previously said was “mangled beyond recognition.”
Lacson said some senators were given allocations of P5 to P10 billion each, while some members of the House of Representatives got as much as P15 billion each. He did not name names.
Senators were previously allotted P200 million each in pork barrel funds, and congressmen P70 million each before the SC struck down the PDAF system.
Aside from the pork allocations, Lacson said he also found inequitable and distorted appropriations for flood control projects in the 2025 national budget.
“We saw an item where a very small barangay in a small town received an appropriation of P1.9 billion (while) one small town got an appropriation of P10 billion. I will question (them) if they can absorb that amount. Imagine, a P10 billion appropriation for a small town with 10,000 residents! It is an inequitable distribution of the budget,” he said.
He added that he “will seek clarification on … what happened to the P10 billion appropriated to the small town? We saw that it is near a riverbank, but is it the only town with a riverbank? These appropriations are for flood control.”
He said he is also verifying information that agencies and contractors have been using backhoes for flood control projects only for “show” when inspectors are checking out the projects. They were supposedly not used when no inspections are scheduled.
Lacson said he will question the mentioned projects when the Senate starts scrutinizing the 2026 national expenditure program, adding that the allocations reek with irregularities.
Lacson, who won his Senate bid under the administration’s “Alyansa para sa Bagong Pilipinas” coalition, vowed to continue his advocacy of strictly guarding how government spends taxpayers’ money, noting that the government spends around P16 billion a day but earns only 12 billion daily, resulting to a daily borrowing of P4 billion.
“If we don’t shape up in preparing the budget, we may end up having to borrow P6 billion a day in one to two years, and P10 billion a day after five years. Where will we end up then?” he asked.
Lacson said he is currently scrutinizing the 2023, 2024 and 2025 national budgets.
Prior to his presidential run in the 2022 national elections, Lacson was known to closely review the annual government spending plan and initiate massive cuts on appropriations deemed unnecessary.
During his last term in the Senate in 2022, Lacson recalled that he and former senator Franklin Drilon managed to remove the proposed appropriations for dredging and flood control projects in the annual budget, arguing that “these are the roots of corruption.”
“We succeeded in removing them in the bicam before we termed out in 2022. Now they’re back with a vengeance,” he said.
