Carmona, Cavite—Seventeen years of scrutinizing the national budget has saved the Filipino people at least P300 billion, Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson disclosed Friday afternoon.
Lacson, a watchdog of the national budget, said this amount in public funds could have been lost to corruption had he not kept his guard up.
“I am not bragging but the Filipino people saved some P300 billion in the 17 years I had been scrutinizing the budget. Even I did not quite expect the amount to be that big,” the Partido Reporma standard-bearer said before a gathering here.
The Partido Reporma chairman and standard-bearer also defended barangay officials who were criticized over the distribution of cash aid or ‘ayuda’ to residents stuck inside their homes because of strict lockdowns at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a public forum held on the sidelines of his political rally here, Lacson said village chieftains who took it upon themselves to ration out the P8,000 cash subsidy so that more people could benefit did not deserve to be pilloried.
Officials and residents of the towns of Carmona, Silang and General Mariano Alvarez (GMA) in Cavite threw their support behind the Partido Reporma standard-bearer as hundreds pledged their allegiance to the party and its reform advocacies.
Led by host Carmona Mayor Roy M. Loyola and Cavite 5th District Rep. Dahlia Loyola, the executives and locals of the three southeastern Cavite towns pledged to back the presidential bid of their provincemate Lacson in the 2022 elections, after the senator visited his hometown of Imus City earlier in the day.
Lacson thanked his townmates and fellow Caviteños for their constant support and even reminded them that they made him the province’s top vote-getter in the 2004 elections when he first ran for president.
He noted this scrutiny has been done at all levels – from the committee to the plenary to the bicameral conference committee.
Lacson, who served as senator from 2001 to 2013 and 2016 to present, had flagged several irregular and inappropriate entries in the national budget.
Also, he made sure that his Priority Development Assistance Fund allocations (a.k.a. pork barrel) – amounting to P200 million a year – from 2001 to 2013 would be returned to the National Treasury. This was before the Supreme Court outlawed the PDAF in late 2013.
“If I had not been watching the budget, that’s P300 billion in our hard-earned taxes and even debts lost to corruption,” Lacson said.
He reiterated his call to bring resources to the local governments so they can implement their development projects – the vision of his Budget Reform Advocacy for Village Empowerment (BRAVE).
Under BRAVE, the unused portion of the national budget – which averaged P328.85 billion from 2010 to 2020 – could be used to go to the local governments.
Lacson capped his visit to his home province of Cavite by welcoming new members of Partido Reporma.
He shared the story of one barangay official in Silang, Cavite who reached out for help to him because of the complaints he received from his constituents over his decision to cut their ‘ayuda’ in aid of cash-strapped jeepney drivers, who were left out of the list of beneficiaries.
“‘When the P8,000 allowance was cut—of course, the barangay official sought their consent through signed waivers, he did everything—but apparently there were people goaded into filing complaints against him,” Lacson recalled.
“So, when this was brought to my attention, I called the National Bureau of Investigation right away. I told them the intention was not bad. I’m sure there are other barangay officials who encountered the same problem,” the presidential aspirant noted.
Lacson has been pinning the responsibility over the chaotic rollout of the Social Amelioration Program (SAP) of the government on the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), which used obsolete data for its list of subsidy beneficiaries.
The DSWD based its list of SAP recipients on its 2015 Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) index, according to the senator, which denied many citizens who lost their jobs in 2020 from receiving subsidies, including a number of public utility vehicle (PUV) drivers.
Lawmakers tried correcting the issue by allocating a separate P5.58-billion for the financial assistance of PUV drivers under Bayanihan II, but the Commission on Audit (COA) flagged its implementation anew because only one percent of such funds has been distributed thus far.
To avoid similar problems from cropping up in the future, Lacson said he will be pushing for the digitalization of government services to ensure that all data-driven solutions are up to date and to facilitate interoperability between the national and local government units.
“What we are supposed to do is to create data-driven solutions. Now that we’re in the middle of a pandemic, they should be science-based. We can’t keep guessing. When our data is wrong, we will make wrong decisions. That’s how crucial data is,” he explained.
In introducing the longtime public servant to a socially-distanced crowd, Mayor Loyola compared Lacson to the late Singaporean leader Lee Kuan Yew as a strong, able, and truthful leader that could govern the country properly and give it the hope it needed if he wins the polls in May next year.
“Ang susi ng pag-unlad ng Singapore ay ang paghalal nila ng lider an may kakayahan, katapatan, katapangan, at karunungan sa katauhan ni Lee Kuan Yew,” the mayor said.
“Matagal nang naglingkod sa PNP at Senado si President Ping Lacson, kaya maihahalintulad natin siya kay Lee. Siya lang ang tanging PNP chief na nagpanumbalik ng tiwala ng publiko sa kapulisan, siya ay tapat sa bayan at may tapang labanan ang krimen, at handang ipatupad ang batas na patas para sa lahat upang guminhawa ang ating mga buhay,” Loyola added.
If Singaporeans could pick a leader like the late Lee, the mayor said Filipinos could learn to pick a “matino” (sober-minded) president like
Lacson, who Loyola said would give more hope to the country by helping the villages and regions progress.
Partido Reporma president and Davao del Norte Rep. Pantaleon Alvarez, who attended the event along with senatorial candidates Raffy Tulfo and Paolo Capino, said if Filipinos examined the qualifications of the current presidential candidates, none would match the over 50 years in public service of Lacson as a police officer and lawmaker.
“Bakit nanggaling pa ako sa malayo at pumunta para ipakita ang suporta kay President Ping Lacson? Suriin nating mabuti ang qualifications ng mga kandidato. Huwag tayong magpaligaw sa kulay, hindi iyon ang tunay na isyu, kundi ang kakayahan mamuno at pamunuan ang bansa sa gitna ng krisis,” Alvarez said.
The Mindanao native and former House Speaker thanked the new members for joining Partido Reporma and said Lacson’s and their party’s advocacies would not end with next year’s elections.
“Hindi ito matatapos ngayong halalan. Palalakihin at palalawigin nation ang prinsipyo ng partido, na dadalhin din ng lahat ng rating kandidato,” Alvarez said.