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BIC: Real game changer
An inescapable conclusion is that the proposed reform of the pork-barrel system is skin-deep. If President Aquino prefers a more serious, broader and long-lasting reform, a real game-changer, he should agree to endorse and work for the approval of the Budget Impoundment Control (BIC) bill. The BIC Act will oblige the President to release the budget in accordance with GAA.
If due to changed economic condition, the President prefers to impound (meaning not release) part of the GAA, then he will required by the BIC law to seek congressional approval. This will revive the congressional power of the purse which is practically non-existent all these years. This will strengthen political institutions. And it will give real meaning to one-fund concept and the checks-and-balance provision enshrined in the 1987 Constitution.
It is reasonable to assume that the Filipino people voted for President Aquino because they want real change, and they want a major break from his corrupt and opaque predecessor. They see in him the possibility of an open and corruption-free administration.
But halfway through his presidency, a rising number of his former supporters has become disappointed and disenchanted.
Doubts about Mr. Aquino’s seriousness about his anti-corruption campaign were first raised when he pussyfooted on the Freedom of Information (FOI) measure. He strongly supported the FOI during the presidential campaign; he avoided it like a plague after he was sworn in as president three years ago. How can one who is committed to an open government be opposed to the FOI act?
With the congressional pork scrapped, there is an increasing pressure for the President to give up his own pork — both those in the budget and off-budget. He should govern by example.
I’m not talking of the Calamity Fund and the Contingent Fund in the national budget. I agree that there are justifications, say need for flexibility, for these funds.
But there are some funds that may be less aggregated, such as the School Building Fund, the e-government Fund, and other lump sums in the budgets of say the Department of Public Works and Highways, the Department of Agriculture, and Department of Interior and Local Government. These maybe considered ‘presidential pork.’
The President's pork
In a sense, one can make a case that the entire President’s budget, especially if Congress approved it with little alterations, is the President’s pork.
Under the present system, which is a carryover of the martial law years, the President can slice and dice the budget, arbitrarily extract ‘savings’ from any or all executive departments, reshape it anyway he wants, and then release the funds in accordance with the altered budget.
Additionally, there are large chunks of "off-budget" funds that the President controls totally since they do not require congressional approval. They are allocated and disbursed by unelected officials. These funds are the Malampaya Fund (more than P100 billion), the PAGCOR Presidential Social Fund (approximately P25 billion annually and rising) and the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office Charity Fund.
The legal bases for the existence and use of these off-budget presidential pork were of martial law vintage.
Assuming that President Aquino has been upright, frugal, and open in the use of these "off-budget" funds, there is no guarantee that those who will succeed him will be equally upright and clean. This justifies the need to institutionalize the integration of these funds into the National Treasury and that their use should undergo the same budgetary review just like any other fund.
Moreover, such move will be consistent with the best practices in the world — the one-fund concept. It is also consistent with the constitutional desire to give Congress the power to authorize the appropriate use of funds, regardless of source, collected by the government.
Some apologists would insist that it is better to trust Mr. Aquino than the members of Congress. But that's a cop-out, and it assumes that Mr. Aquino would be around forever. That’s a big assumption, which is why reforms of the budget process have to be institutionalized while Mr. Aquino is fully in control.
This puts President Aquino III at a crossroads.
He can sit idly by, muddle through, and pass on the corrupt, dysfunctional political system to his successor. Or he can take the bold move: discontinue the pork barrel system and implement the other real budget reforms. For choosing the former, the Filipino people will forever condemn him; for choosing the latter, a grateful people will forever revere him. - Rappler.com
Dr. Diokno is Professor of Economics at the University of the Philippines and former Secretary of Budget and Management.
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