Palace willing to work with Congress for
equitable pork barrel spending
The Palace said it is prepared to work with
Congress for a more prudent spending of pork barrel funds of lawmakers.
“We are prepared to work with them. This is not
the first time that we have encountered this particular situation. When the
President assumed office, if you notice, the inclination has always been to
limit the uses that would be available under the PDAF,” Deputy Presidential
spokesperson Abigail Valte said in a radio interview over dzRB Radyo ng Bayan
on Saturday.
“And you can see by now that the limitations,
the tact to limit has given—has produced some success. So we will continue to
work with the members of the House on this.”
Valte was reacting to questions whether the
Palace is prepared to go to war with Congress just to straighten out how pork
barrel funds are used.
At the same time, there are also calls on
lawmakers to comply with submission of their SALNs so that the public will know
how much money they accumulate while in office.
But Valte explained that technically, members of
Congress are not obliged to submit their SALNs to the Bureau of Internal
Revenue (BIR) but to the House of Representatives.
“Anybody who wants to get a copy of the SALN
should be able to go to the House secretariat to ask for the SALN,” she said.
Congressmen submitting SALNs to the BIR is not
regular, given that Congress is a co-equal branch and the BIR is under the
Executive branch, Valte explained.
Malacanang made an assurance this week that the
ongoing investigation of the National Bureau of Investigation into the alleged
pork barrel scam will be impartial and objective.
Valte said in an interview on Friday that the
Palace wants to conclude the NBI investigation at the soonest possible time
adding however that prosecuting and putting those guilty behind bars are beyond
its control. PND (as)
