Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, December 11) – Senator Sonny Angara assured that there are no questionable insertions or pork funds in the Congress-ratified ₱4.5-trillion national budget for 2021.
“The fact is not pork barrel in the sense that is described by the Supreme Court, because these are line-item projects, like they are specifically set for in a line-item rather than lump sums,” he told CNN Philippines’ The Final Word on Thursday.
“They require no – what the Supreme Court calls – post-enactment participation of the legislators. So I think it falls squarely within the legislature’s power to appropriate,” he added.
The House of Representatives and the Senate reconciled on Wednesday their versions of the 2021 General Appropriations Bill during the bicameral conference meeting. The proposed national budget would only need President Rodrigo Duterte’s signature to become a law.
Among the senators, Senator Panfilo Lacson was the only one who rejected the bicameral conference committee report, citing the questionable increase in the budget of the Department of Public Works and Highways and decrease of funds for the National Broadband Program.
Angara, on the other hand, said that it was hard to “dissuade” congressmen from putting infrastructure projects in their respective districts.
“It’s hard to dissuade them…because for them they (infrastructure projects) are visible or tangible manifestation of their performance as legislators and they need to deliver the goods back home,” he explained.
