It was the Department of Public Works and Highways and not congressmen that reallocated funds for certain districts, a lawmaker said.
This, after a senator called out the sudden increases in the budgets for Speaker Lord Allan Velasco’s allies in proposed spending bill for 2021.
Sen. Panfilo Lacson earlier noted the noticeable increases in the budgets of Velasco allies, while those in districts represented by allies of former speaker Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano were cut down.
ACT-CIS Party-list Rep. Eric Yap, who chairs the appropriations committee, said the DPWH may have moved the budget for Camarines Sur to projects that are expected to be finished by 2022.
“I think nilipat ng DPWH ‘yun sa mas priority, dun sa matatapos by the end of 2022. So ang bottomline po ay ang nag-realign po is ang DPWH, and we just adopted the amendments given to us by the department,” he said.
[I think DPWH moved it to priority projects, those that will be finished by the end of 2022. The bottomline is it was DPWH that realigned and we just adopted the amendments given to us by the department.]
Yap also gave his assurance that the 2021 budget will be free of pork barrel and will focus on meaningful projects for the citizens.
“I can assure na free ito (that this is free) of pork barrel…All I can see is a project that will benefit the Filipino people,” he said.
