The government has been advised by businessmen and church leaders to tighten rules on the use of the congressional pork barrel and other public funds to ensure these are used for their anticipated purpose.
The Makati Business Club; Bishops-Businessmen’s Conference for Human Development; Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines-National Secretariat for Social Action, Justice and Peace; Citizens’ Congress for Good Governance, and Transparency and Accountability Network said the government needs to implement tighter rules on the use of pork barrel and other public funds in the wake of the scandal associating lawmakers.
These groups mentioned that despite the fact that the government is exerting efforts to bolster the national coffers through increased tax compliance, people’s money has been purportedly misused by individuals both inside and outside of government.
They strongly stressed their disappointments to the leaders who were supposed to be doing their jobs as lawmakers, have now repeatedly been associated with mishandling of the Priority Development Assistance Func (PDAF).
“We thus strongly support the conduct of an impartial and comprehensive investigation into the issue, and call on those connected to this scam, whether private citizen or public figure, to submit themselves to such a probe,” the group added.
Furthermore, the groups noted that the swift passage of the Freedom of Information bill is necessary to eradicate corruption in the government.
In the meantime, the Commission on Audit (COA) will be stricter in analyzing the use of operational funds of Congress following the alleged involvement of lawmakers in the pork barrel scam, and is waiting for the formal endorsement of the Senate and the House of Representatives on the proposed guidelines on the liquidation of their office funds.
