Senator Noynoy Aquino's Explanation of Vote on the 2010 GAA

The primary means through which Congress can influence public policy is its oversight function over the approval of the national budget.

This power allows Congress to scrutinize whether proposed programs and projects have well-defined objectives, whether the programs and projects are implemented faithfully according to these goals, and, finally, whether the programs and projects deserve to be funded. By the same logic, this power also gives Congress the right to withhold funding for programs and projects whose proponents fail to justify their need.

Ever since we became a member of Congress, we have performed this function by seeking answers from executive agencies with regard to their use of public funds.

Year after year, we have come across evidence of repeated misuses of our taxpayers' money. Year after year, we have asked executive agencies to take corrective measures. We have even worked to propose amendments to the budget to ensure stricter guidelines on the use of public funds, only to have these amendments duly rejected.

However, the President and her allies have been consistently blasé about the wrongdoings that we pointed out year after year, choosing to ignore our calls to rectify the irregularities that we have uncovered and to ensure that they are not repeated.

This year's budget deliberations only unearthed even more indications of poor performance and anomalous transactions:

• The conviction rate of the DOJ's prosecution service is at 18%, incredibly dismal compared to Japan, where the conviction rate is at an astounding 99.8%. This shows that most cases in the Philippines are not successfully prosecuted in court. In addition, ordinary criminal cases take an average of 5 to 6 years to resolve. It is the ability to secure a conviction that is the real measure of a good prosecutor, not how long papers can be shuffled.

• The World Bank released a report on the collusion of some contractors for the National Road Improvement and Management Project, and recommended to blacklist firms involved in the collusion and bid rigging of the road projects. The DPWH reaction was to blacklist them only for World Bank-assisted projects, leaving them free to bid for non-World Bank-assisted projects, if they were found to be qualified. However, the determination of DPWH to verify their qualifications to bid for these projects was not demonstrated during the budget hearings.

• The numerous errors in the textbook series "English for You and Me" are still extant in spite of DepEd's implementation of the 4-step evaluation process. The agency's response to the problem of classroom shortages has been to resort to quadruple shifting, which imposes such an onerous burden on students as young as Grade 1 who, while being taught their English lessons, are also forced to absorb Science and even Health lessons in just one period.

• Despite its regulations that should phase out non-performing schools, given that there have been nursing schools registering 0% passing percentage for more than three years, the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) only managed to close down one school, further exposing parents and students to schools that are unable to adequately prepare them for board examinations.

• The DA's farm-to-market roads, which were meant to ease the burden of our farmers in transporting goods, were constructed in areas with no farms. Some were even built near beach resorts. There were also projects with budgets that were depleted by almost P60 million due to administrative costs charged by the National Agribusiness Corporation (NABCOR) for transferring funds first to the said corporation instead of transferring it directly to the regional offices. Furthermore, despite the COA's recommendation to discontinue the practice of circuitous and unnecessary transfer of funds sourced from the regular fund and the PDAF, DA still transferred a total of almost P2 billion to NABCOR in 2008. In the same year, the DA transferred P340 million to the ZNAC Rubber Estates Corporation, whose officers were officials of the DA.

These problems exist, but during the budget hearings, the departments and their attached agencies did not even try to convince us that they would embark on a program to correct these findings. In the defense of the various agencies' budgets, the overwhelming attitude seemed to be a lack of desire to address the situation, if not an active effort to allow it to continue.

Mr. President, this is a systemic problem that is affecting the executive branch and is condoned by the President's allies. Proposing amendments that will most likely be rejected would only be resorting to illusory band-aid solutions that will not address the problem. As such, the only possible vote is NO to clearly protest the way our people's money is being misspent by this administration.