With the policy statement issued by Speaker Arroyo concerning all the congressmen’s earmarks for their respective districts, expect a massive mangling of the National Expenditure Program (NEP).

If not checked, we will be back to the happy ‘pork barrel’ days of legislators in spite of the Supreme Court ruling outlawing the same.

Worse, all the planning involved in the preparation of the national budget will be rendered inutile to the detriment of the medium development plan of the national government, as well as the local development plans submitted by the local government units (LGUs).

I hope some like-minded colleagues in the Senate will also work overtime, as I am determined to do, in scrutinizing the House version of the appropriations bill to expose and slice whatever “pork” there is in whatever form and no matter how deeply hidden, with the end in view of preventing the return of this malevolent practice now declared unconstitutional with finality by the Supreme Court.

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