By Mario Casayuran  Senator Joseph Victor ‘’JV’’ Ejercito admitted yesterday he had P24 billion inserted in the hotly contested proposed 2019 P3.7 trillion national budget but insisted that the funds are for the Department of Health (DOH) for the improvement and upgrading of their hospitals and health facilities. Senator JV Ejercito (Tony Pionilla / MANILA BULLETIN FILE PHOTO) ‘’These are line items. These are requests by governors and mayors. What is important is that there is no post enactment and intervention or on who the contractor of the projects shall be. That is important,’’ Ejercito said. Ejercito stressed this amid allegations by the House of Representatives that senators, like House members, also have pork barrel appropriations. Like Senator Panfilo M. Lacson who is going hammer and tongs against the pork barrel system, Ejercito said these are ‘’institutional insertions’’ and they do not stand to benefit financially from these projects. Lacson, a former Philippine National Police (PNP) chief, had revealed that each House member has P160 million in pork barrel that are mainly flood control projects and farm-to-market roads. Two House leaders reportedly have more than P4 billion in pork barrel allocations. House Appropriations Committee chairman Rolando Andaya Jr. earlier pointed out that the Senate had put in more than P190 billion worth of amendments in the proposed 2019 P3.7 trillion Government Appropriations Act (GAA) compared to only P51 billion on the part of the Lower House. The late Senator Miriam Santiago had lambasted members of Congress of pocketing so much from their pork barrel appropriations by way of commissions from contractors. The supposed going rate is 15 percent minimum. As chairman of the Senate health committee, Ejercito maintained that his P24 billion ‘’institutional insertions’’ is constitutionally allowed being line budget ‘’and we don’t decide who is the contractor of the project.’’ The P24 billion, according to Ejercito, is split into two; P17 billion for the construction, upgrading, rehabilitation and improvement of government hospitals under the DOH and the P7 billion to P8 billion was added so that the personnel workforce of the DOH would not be affected. Lacson himself admitted that he has ‘’institutional insertions’’ for the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the PNP as requested by AFP and PNP officials for their institutions and that these could not be classified as ‘’pork barrel.’’ Senate President Vicente C. Sotto III had proposed to Senator Loren Legarda, chairwoman of the Senate finance committee, to withdraw the Government Appropriations Bill (GAB) ‘’and go for the re-enacted budget.’’ ‘’I hope that will erase all doubts and allegations of pork and other so-called insertions in the budget,’’ Sotto said. But Ejercito said he is still hopeful that the Senate and Lower House bicameral conference committees could still approve the proposed 2019 national before both Houses go on a three-month election break starting Wednesday night. He warned that failure of Congress to pass the budget and force the national government to operate in a re-enacted budget would negatively affect further the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). He said a re-enacted budget would mean that half of 2019 is not productive as infrastructure projects could not be implemented before the election period because of the election ban. This period is the best time to implement infrastructure projects before the rainy season sets in late May or early June, Ejercito pointed out. Asked during a radio interview Saturday what was the atmosphere during the bicameral conference committee meetings on the budget, Ejercito said there appeared a tendency not to pass the budget. ‘’Our economy would be affected in a re-enacted budget,’’ he added.