‘Pork unli’ new Palace control rod By Christine F. Herrera | Mar. 06, 2014 at 12:01am Backdoor dealings current Congress norm THE Palace is now in full control of Congress after the Executive imposed a “sky’s the limit or pork unlimited policy” for House members’ pork barrel projects, tapping even this year’s P25 billion in lump sum appropriations that the Supreme Court had declared unconstitutional, lawmakers disclosed Wednesday. New modus. The form solons have to fill up for their pork barrel. “It is business as usual here but sky’s the limit as we get more after the Palace removed the P70-million cap, except we cannot openly claim the projects as our own anymore because it is the Executive that has obtained full control and taken full credit over the projects as it wants to make it appear that we are compliant with the SC ruling,” House Deputy Minority Leader Arnel Ty told the Manila Standard. ACT Teachers Rep. Antonio Tinio, who first exposed the anomaly, said the practice has reared its ugly head because “transparency and accountability have been completely erased.” “Everything is done quietly. Backdoor negotiation is now the norm. We now call it hidden pork. There is no paper trail, no black and white, everything depends on how close the lawmaker is to the powers-that-be,” Tinio told the Manila Standard in a separate interview. Tinio, who belongs to the minority, headed by House Minority Leader Ronaldo Zamora, said the seven-member Makabayan, of which, he is also a member, said the progressive bloc refused to avail of the unconstitutional pork barrel” after they had declared that all pork barrel, including the President Benigno Aquino III’s discretionary funds be scrapped because these breed patronage and turn Congress into a rubber stamp for the Palace. Tinio said the “hidden pork” was working its magic following the “unusually fast progress of the Charter change resolution despite opposition from several sectors and legal luminaries.” “The Aquino administration will rely on hidden pork to ensure the amendment of the Constitution,” said Tinio, in a press statement. “The committee approval of the ChaCha resolution after only a few meetings is not surprising,” Tinio said. “No doubt, Malacanang has been using its wide arsenal of congressional and presidential pork to grease the approval despite heavy substantive and procedural objections to it.” House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr., author of the Charter change resolution, denied that pork barrel funds had been dangled to get the approval of panel members. Belmonte said Tinio’s claim about the hidden pork was a product of “his imagination only.” Tinio recently revealed P20.8 billion of “House pork” tucked into the 2014 budgets of six line agencies and revealed the formal and informal practices used by legislators to access it, including a form circulating among House members which serves as listing of beneficiaries identified by lawmakers. “Such informal practices of maintaining the pork barrel system are illegal following the Supreme Court decision. Moreover, they can only persist because of the conscious and willful participation of the President and his Cabinet,” Tinio said. “In sustaining the congressional pork barrel through hidden or informal means, Malacañang is violating the law and deceiving the public.” (snipped) Full article: manilastandardtoday/2014/03/07/-unli-pork-linked-to-cha-cha-express/
Posted on: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 00:55:11 +0000
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