Senate President Pro Tempore Panfilo “Ping” Lacson on Tuesday questioned the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH)’s so-called “Leadership Fund,” which he said allowed lawmakers to tinker with the National Expenditure Program (NEP).
Lacson learned about the fund while grilling ex-DPWH Secretary Manuel Bonoan during the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee’s hearing on anomalous flood control projects.
During the hearing, Lacson had asked how ex-DPWH Undersecretary Roberto Bernardo could download hundreds of millions of pesos worth of projects sourced from the NEP, or the budget proposal prepared by the executive branch, to the Bulacan First District Engineering Office under now-sacked district engineer Henry Alcantara.
“The NEP is the President’s budget proposal to be transmitted to the House and eventually to the Senate. Why are there insertions in the NEP? That I cannot really understand for the life of me,” Lacson told Bonoan in a mix of English and Filipino at the hearing of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee on anomalous flood control projects.
In Filipino: Lacson, Binanatan ang ‘Leadership Fund’ ng DPWH: Bakit Pinapayagang Sumawsaw ang mga Mambabatas sa NEP?
Continue reading “Lacson Grills DPWH on ‘Leadership Fund’: Why Let Lawmakers Tinker with NEP?”