SENATOR Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III, the biggest spender of pork during the election period in 2013, on Sunday asked the Senate Finance committee to remove and deduct his P200-M allocation from the 2014 national budget.
In his letter to Senator Francis “Chiz” Escudero, dated November 5, 2013, Pimentel informed the panel that he is no longer interested and hence not availing of any PDAF for 2014.
“For this reason, I respectfully request that the amount of P200,000, 000 allocated as my PDAF be removed and deducted from the 2014 budget,” Pimentel said.
Last October, the Senate approve a resolution filed by Senate President Franklin Drilon urging President Aquino to realign the remaining balance of the Upper Chamber’s pork barrel for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of infrastructure destroyed by the recent 7.2 magnitude earthquake in Bohol and Cebu, the recent typhoon Santi and siege in Zamboanga City.
Pimentel has a remaining balance of P190 million from his pork barrel allocation in 2013.
Based on data culled from the website of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), Pimentel is the biggest spender during the election period with P195.2 million in fund utilization for the first half of the current fiscal year.
In 2011, Pimentel spent P41 million of his pork barrel after former Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri resigned in October of that year. For 2012, Pimentel utilized the amount of P59 million with a grand total of P295,200,000 for three years.
From 2011 to 2013, Pimentel landed in the bottom three with the lowest utilization of pork barrel but bigger than Senator Serge Osmena with P285.07M; and Drilon, with P243M, the lowest.
Former Senators Joker Arroyo and Panfilo Lacson did not avail their pork allocation for the period, which was also deducted from the national budget on particular fiscal years.
The P10-B pork barrel scam was the subject of the outrages from the public allegedly engineered by Janet Lim-Napoles who funneled huge funds from legislators PDAF to her fake NGOs including Senators Jinggoy Estrada, Ramon Revilla Jr., and Senate Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile.
Along with Napoles, the three senators were also charged with plunder and graft and corruption before the Office of the Ombudsman.
The post Senate’s biggest pork spender in 2013, deducts P200-M PDAF from 2014 budget appeared first on Remate.
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