Former Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno thinks it’s implausible that the controversial “double entry” of the budget for the extension of Carlos P. Garcia Avenue (commonly known as C-5) refers to two separate projects on the same highway. The items are as follows: Under “roads to decongest traffic” (p. 563 of RA 9498) is the first appropriation: “g. Construction of Pres. Garcia Avenue Ext. from SLEX to Sucat Road including ROW ………. P200,000,000” while under “Urgent Infrastructure including Local Projects” (p. 646), is the second appropriation: “h (7) Construction of C-5 Road Extension from SLEX to Sucat Road including ROW ………. P200,000,000.”
Diokno says the first project is a congressional “initiative”—“meaning it was inserted in the budget at the request of a legislator (representative or senator)” because the item wasn’t in either the General Appropriations Bill passed by the House or the list of amendments deliberated upon by the Senate. Therefore, it must have materialized in the bicameral conference committee. On the other hand, “the second project is the same project proposed in the President’s Budget.” This means the project was envisioned by the Palace all along, which raises the question of why there are two entries for a project the Palace wanted anyway.
Diokno believes it’s less about actually paying twice as much for the same thing, and more about the President accommodating a budgetary insertion, which actually gives her an additional P200 million to spend as she pleases. That’s because the President has authority over the release of funds, and so, if there are two allocations for the same project, she can authorize the spending of P200 million for the C-5 project (including purchasing the right of way if necessary) and then declare the second allocation as “savings.” (At the same, whoever proposed the redundant budgetary provisions was accommodated, putting the legislator in the President’s debt.)
The “savings” thus freed up can then be spent on whatever the President sees fit, and not just for the lifetime of the present General Appropriations Act (the national budget), but up to a year after that. Capital expenses, says Diokno, have a lifetime of two years, because of the time it takes to get them done, so that what was appropriated for 2008 remains available for spending up to 2010. Very convenient!
This was no budgetary boo-boo, then, as some people who are trying to pooh-pooh the exposé concerning two separate items in the budget providing for the same thing are trying to argue. Aside from Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya Jr. stating that they are allocations for one and the same project, Diokno points out that the bureaucracy is thorough in proposing the budget, and equally thorough in comparing the General Appropriation Act eventually passed by Congress with the budget bill prepared by the House and whatever changes are subsequently made by the Senate.
By all accounts, the Palace, too, is aware of whatever budgetary changes are made in the conference committee. The President, too, exercises a final say in submitting line-item vetoes to Congress preparatory to signing the General Appropriations Act (GAA). So whatever lines remain untouched can be assumed to have received a presidential imprimatur. Again, by all accounts, the President, compared to her predecessors, is, as one congressman told me, a “fussbudget,” literally poring over the GAA line by line. Nothing escapes her eagle eyes as far as the budget is concerned. She needs to pay zealous attention because she has to keep a mental image of how much money is in the presidential piggy bank, since it’s said she’s in the habit of traveling with blank checks and whipping them out and filling them on the spot, to reward obliging allies in local governments.
I asked Diokno if this sort of double entry was unprecedented and he seemed to think so. His frame of reference is quite vast, dating to the days when he assisted Ninoy Aquino in going over the budget and including, of course, his own experience in the Executive Branch. The allocation of two separate amounts for one project, however, seems to be perfectly legal, as would the President’s use of the funds for other purposes, once she declares the other budgeted amount as “savings.” Criminal or ethical culpability would only enter the picture if something fishy took place concerning the actual bidding process and construction of the project, but that would require keeping tabs on the project and following the paper trail, if one exists.
And so we’re back to the cold comfort of seeing, yet again, that what is legal isn’t necessarily what’s right. It might be crediting the Executive Branch with too much cunning to suggest that it laid out a trap for an ally. That is, by doing that ally a favor by letting an “insertion” go through without a corresponding intention to either spend twice as much as necessary to build the proposed infrastructure, or out of the desire to outfox that ally by going through with the project while freeing up a corresponding amount for the President’s own purposes.
One thing is sure: The Palace left its ally to hang out to dry, by virtuously expressing the hope that Congress will get to the bottom of the whole thing (sidestepping its being a party to the two items being in the budget in the first place).
In the end, the exposé of Sen. Panfilo Lacson serves only an educational purpose. The public now understands the budgetary process a little better, including how members of Congress are ultimately at the mercy of the President—and how Congress has to content itself being penny wise while the Palace can afford to be pound foolish.
