Press Release
January 8, 2007

SOME CONGRESSMEN, MORE THAN GMA,
ARE CAUSING BUDGET DEADLOCK

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Nene Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today said it is the congressmen, more than President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who are pressing hard for the restoration of the P4.7 billion funding for the Food-for-School Program which has triggered the ongoing deadlock in the deliberations in the proposed 2007 national budget.

Pimentel said Malacañang originally allocated only P1.6 billion in the food subsidy for elementary school pupils for this year but the House of Representatives jacked up the amount to P4.7 billion under its own version of the P1.126 trillion national budget.

In fairness to the President, I do not believe that she is the one causing the delay in the approval of the new budget. She knows that without a new budget, there will be no funds for new projects of her administration, he said.

Besides, he said non-approval of the 2007 budget will mean reenactment of the 2005 budget for the third time which the President does not relish because this will reflect badly on her administration.

Pimentel said there are strong grounds to suspect that the food subsidy fund would end up being used by the administration candidates to buy votes in the May 14 national and local elections.

He cited the following reasons for harboring this suspicion:

1. The money will be entirely used for the procurement of rice instead of buying other nutritious foods such as milk.

2. Instead of feeding malnourished children during school hours, the school authorities will give each of them one kilo of rice per day to be brought home, to be cooked and by their families.

3. Local government units will be tapped in the distribution of rice.

4. The distribution of rice will continue even during the summer vacation (April-May).

Pimentel bewailed that the House contingent in bicameral conference committee has taken a hardline stance in rejecting the Senates decision to scrap the P4.7 billion Food-for-School fund and to realign the amount to the construction of new school buildings and hiring of more public school teachers.

He said that when the Senate panel, chaired by Sen. Franklin Drilon, chair of the finance committee, proposed that amount should be used to purchase other food items and that the supplemental feeding be conducted within the school grounds, the House contingent, led by Albay Rep. Joey Salceda, chairman of the appropriations committee, turned down these options.

Pimentel said it is significant to point out that the House panel earlier interposed no objection the Senates decision to scrap the additional P8 billion pork barrel allocations for congressmen since this would have jacked up the spending level beyond the ceiling set by Malacañang .

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