House Majority Leader and Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr. on Wednesday night urged Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno to directly answer allegations that he was behind the insertion of some P75 billion in the proposed P3.757-trillion national budget for 2019.
READ: House leader vents ire on Diokno over pork insertions in new budget
“We hope Secretary Diokno will reconsider his decision not to appear in the hearings to be conducted by the House rules committee on the questionable allocations by the Department of Budget Management in the national budget. He has a lot of explaining to do,” he said.
“In the proposed 2019 national budget, for instance, the House discovered recently that the DBM allocated more than
P325 million for infrastructure projects in Casiguran, Sorsogon. These projects were included in the P75 billion inserted by the DBM in the National Expenditure Program submitted to Congress,” he added.
He said the P325-million new projects in Casiguran were part again of the flood control program—the P75 million Himaoyon flood control, P80 million Lungib seawall and embankment, P100 million Somalot seawall and embankment, P45 million Cagpagol River control and P25 million Suji River control.
“This recent discovery of the P325-million allocation for new projects in Casiguran for 2019 raises a red flag as pieces of evidence already uncovered point to Secretary Diokno’s in-laws as the real beneficiaries of infrastructure projects in Sorsogon,” Andaya said.
“We are not surprised that the P325-million new projects for Casiguran turn out to be flood-mitigating projects. These are the pet projects of Secretary Diokno, whose new advocacy is climate change,” he said.
During the recent congressional question hour, Andaya said, Diokno admitted affinity with Casiguran Mayor Edwin Hamor, husband of Sorsogon Gov. Ester Hamor, whose son, Jojo Sicat, is the husband of Diokno’s daughter, Charlotte.
“Whether Diokno admits it or not, Edwin and Ester Hamor are his daughter’s parents-in-law. This, he cannot deny,” he added.
Edwin and Ester are running for re-election in 2019.
Citing a television interview, Andaya said the Casiguran mayor admitted his children entered into a joint venture with CT Leoncio Construction and Trading that “cornered a huge chunk of the P10 billion allocated by DBM for Sorsogon in the 2018 national budget.”
“Documents now in possession of the House panel show that a daughter of the Hamors, Maria Minez Hamor, owns Aremar Construction Corp. This firm, we found out, is a partner of C.T. Leoncio,” he said.
Andaya said under the proposed 2019 national budget, out of the P544.5-billion budget allocated to the Department of Public Works and Highways, P114.4 billion is for flood control projects.
“That’s an increase of almost 24 percent. We want them [to explain] how much of these were allocated to Casiguran and other parts of Sorsogon,” he said.
The House Majority Leader said Congress would invite flood control mitigation director Patrick Gatan to explain the government’s flood control mitigation priorities from 2017 to 2019.
He questioned the DBM’s compliance with the flood mitigation master plan recommended by the Department of Public Works and Highways.
“Were these included in the recommendations of director Gatan? If not, who inserted the new projects in the national budget?” Andaya said in a mix of Filipino and English.
“We also want to know if the DBM allocations in Sorsogon adhere to a recent World Bank study identifying the flood-prone areas in the country and recommending solutions to flooding problem we experience,” Andaya said.
Diokno on Thursday said he is looking forward to a “friendlier” Congress after next year’s midterm elections.
Diokno earlier bared that the government is currently at risk of operating under a reenacted budget, at least for the first quarter of 2019.
Diokno warned that a reenacted budget will be “detrimental to the economic growth and development objectives of the Duterte administration” since no new infrastructure project can start.
Moreover, salary adjustments for civilian and military personnel that are programmed for 2019 will be delayed.
Asked if he sees the same problem recurring in future budgets, Diokno expressed hope that the current delays in the proposed 2019 budget will be the last one.
“I’m hoping this will no longer happen because there’s going to be a new Congress after the election,” Diokno said in a Palace briefing Wednesday.
“So the midterm, there will be a new Congress, hopefully much friendlier than this one,” he added.
Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo, echoed Diokno’s statement.
“I’m sure it will be friendlier. I said yesterday, if I remember correctly, that the way he was treated could have been the result of exuberance on the part of the questioner, temporarily forgetting the rules on courtesies of the House,” Panelo said.
Panelo pointed out that delays in the proposed 2019 budget’s passage did not mean that House Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo did not support it.
“As they explained it, there are certain amendments that they need to scrutinize and subject the same to a more review. And perhaps, because of work in Congress that restricts them from passing the budget on time,” Panelo said. With PNA
