INEQUITABLE and distorted allocations for flood control projects are back in the national budget – and with a vengeance.
This was one of the initial findings of Sen. Panfilo “Ping” M. Lacson in his scrutiny of the 2025 General Appropriations Act (GAA), which he earlier noted had been mangled beyond recognition.
“We saw an item where a very small barangay in a small town received an appropriation of P1.9 billion. One small town got an appropriation of P10 billion. I will question if they can absorb that amount. Imagine, a P10-billion appropriation for a small town with 10,000 residents. It is an inequitable distribution of the budget,” Lacson said in Filipino in an interview on One News late Wednesday.
“I will seek clarification on this. What happened to the P10 billion appropriated to the small town? We saw that it is near a riverbank, but is it the only town with a riverbank? These appropriations are for flood control,” he added.
Lacson, who said he intends to start the 20th Congress “up and running,” is scrutinizing the items in the budgets for 2023, 2024 and 2025.
He noted that before he ended his last Senate term in 2022, he and then Sen. Franklin Drilon managed to have the appropriations for dredging and flood control projects removed from the budget, since these are the root of corruption.
Also, he cited information reaching him that a backhoe for flood control programs would be used only for show – being in action only when being inspected.
“We succeeded in removing them in the bicam before we termed out in 2022. Now they’re back with a vengeance,” he said.
Lacson lamented that before the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, senators had only P200 million in pork and congressmen had P70 million. Now, he said some senators have P5-10 billion, while some House members had as much as P15 billion.
He illustrated the country’s plight where it spends P16 billion but earns only P12 billion a day – thus needing to borrow P4 billion a day.
“If we don’t shape up in preparing the budget, we may end up having to borrow P6 billion a day in one to two years – and P10 billion a day after five years. Where will we end up then?” he said.
