Jul 21, 2013 11:40am HKT SENATOR Cynthia Villar urged President Benigno Aquino III to include the Commission on Audit (COA) in the investigation to be conducted on the P10 billion pork barrel scam allegedly perpetuated by Janet Lim-Napoles, president of JLN Group of Companies. Villar said she was surprised that the disbursement of the lawmakers’ Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) commonly known as pork barrel is still hounded by anomalies despite strict auditing by COA. “I am wondering why COA did not see these anomalies if there are any, the pork barrel fund is being subjected to its strict auditing,” Villar told reporters. She also lamented that COA is very strict in auditing “legitimate” projects identified by the lawmakers while it seems to be lax for ghost projects. “Hinihigpitan nila yung (COA is very strict to) legitimate yung hindi maluwag sila (projects but tend to be slack for dubious ones,” she added. Opposition to pork abolition At the same time Villar expressed opposition to the proposal to scrap the pork barrel saying that it is being used to help their indigent constituents. Besides Villar, Sen. Nancy Binay and her father, Vice President Jejomar Binay also rejected the proposal saying that the pork barrel could be useful in granting medical assistance to poor Filipinos. “Yung (The) bulk ng (of my) PDAF ko mapupunta dun sa (will be allocated to) medical assistance. Like me, gusto ko (I want to) magconcentrate doon sa mga (on) hospital for more funding,” said Sen. Binay. The neophyte senator said she has received many requests for medical assistance even before the 16th Congress opens. For his part, the vice president admitted that he has also pork barrel that this is being allocated to help the senior citizens who need medical assistance. He said his P200 million pork barrel was allocated through former Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile adding that the fund is not enough to grant all the request for medical assistance.
Posted on: Sun, 21 Jul 2013 12:19:49 +0000