‘Pork barrel’ funds to stay in 2014 budget

The Priority Development Assistance Funds (PDAF) of lawmakers will stay in the 2014 budget despite allegations of misuse.
Budget Secretary Butch Abad said some P27 billion in PDAF or “pork barrel” is in the 2014 budget.
Abad said the PDAF stays unless and until there is a decision by the President on the investigation on allegations of PDAF misuse.
However, he said they have recommendations as to how to make the use of PDAF more accountable.
“The direction is limit-based, the NBI [National Bureau of Investigation] and DOJ [Department of Justice] will adopt some measures so we can make sure PDAF assists constituencies,” he said.
Abad added that the budget for next year has all the hard and soft PDAF projects itemized, unlike in the past when only soft projects (non-infrastructure projects) are listed and hard projects are tucked away in the budgets of agencies.
Abad left it to the House leadership to decide if any lawmaker will be denied the PDAF.
“We can only propose to legislature and we will have to make that decision in deference to them we would like to discuss those proposals. We leave to legislature to announce what those reforms are. This is a new Congress, we hope it will also usher in new policies, but again that will be subject to discussion to leadership of the House. We defer to the Speaker’s views with respect to that,” he said.
Abad maintained though they did not deny former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo her PDAF.