Sen. Juan Edgardo ‘’Sonny’’ M. Angara today assured Filipinos that the Senate version of the proposed 2021 P4.5-trillion national budget would not contain any ''pork barrel'' allocations that usually have hundreds of millions of pesos.

As chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance that examines national budgets, Angara said there would be no post enactment identification of projects after the passage of the national budget.

This is the technical term for pork barrel allocations that have many disguises in the appropriation measure.

‘’Dapat klaro na. Walang blank check na isusulat pa lang after ng passage ng budget dapat klaro ang pupuntahan ng pera ng bayan,’’ Angara said. (It must be clear and concise. There is no blank check that would be listed after the passage of the budget. Where the taxpayers’ money will go must be clear)

Sen. Panfilo M. Lacson, chairman of the Senate Committee on National Defense and Security, has fought the inclusion of proposed pork barrel items or appropriations in past national budgets.

In the proposed 2021 budget, Lacson questioned why ‘’the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) has P786 billion budget; P469 billion infrastructure projects re-appropriated, and the Department of Agriculture (DA) has its budget cut by 76 percent; The administration said it wants to focus on 'Plant, Plant, Plant.' Two agencies whose budgets do not match government priorities.’’

‘’Of the P786 billion, we found out P469 billion total ito ang reappropriations na tinatawag (it is called re-appropriations) Meaning, the items are already reflected under the 2020 GAA (General Appropriations Act). And then we found out naroon na naman sa 2021 NEP. So I raised the red flag on this,’’ he said during a recent Senate briefing on the 2021 National Expenditure Program (NEP).

The proposed 2021 national budget is currently being examined by the House of Representatives whose budget version would eventually be transmitted to the Senate.

Lacson said Department of Budget and Management (DBM) Secretary Wendel Avisado ‘’was candid enough to admit there is indeed an error and he will correct it by asking DPWH to submit to him so he can submit to Congress ang errata (the errors).

He said that the P469 billion is too large an amount that is more than 50 percent of the budget of DPWH for infrastructure.
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''My inside info, my source from DBM told us that ang reason for the hasty submission of erroneous appropriations for the 2021 NEP, kasi late nag-submit ang DPWH. For what reason I don’t know. We can only suspect that there was a lot of haggling that went on between DPWH and some legislators, kaya nagkahuli-huli (thus it was late),’’ he added.