Senator Panfilo Lacson warned Tuesday against what he called the return of the “happy pork barrel days” in Congress.
“If not checked, we will be back to the happy ‘pork barrel’ days of legislators in spite of the Supreme Court ruling outlawing the same,” Lacson said.
Even before the Supreme Court ruled on the unconstitutionality of the Priority Development Assistance Fund or the so-called pork barrel, Lacson had never received not even a single centavo from the said funds.
With the policy statement issued by House Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo concerning all the congressmen’s earmarks for their respective districts, Lacson also cautioned against a massive mangling of the National Expenditure Program.
“Worse, all the planning involved in the preparation of the national budget will be rendered inutile to the detriment of the medium development plan of the national government as well as the local development plans submitted by the local government units,” he said.
Lacson also expressed hope some like-minded colleagues in the Senate would also work overtime, determined to scrutinize the House version of the appropriations bill.
He gave assurances he would expose and slice whatever “pork” there would be in whatever form and no matter how deeply hidden.
In this way, he said the return of this practice of pork barrel now declared unconstitutional with finality by the Supreme Court would be prevented.