06 July 2010
The proposal of Liberal Party leaders in the House of Representatives to drastically slash Congressional allocations or what is known as the Priority Development Assistant Fund (PDAF) is flawed, cosmetic, counterproductive, anti-poor and will reduce countrywide development.
The proffered reason for reducing the PDAF from P70M to P30M annually for Representatives and P200M to P130M for Senators is to reduce the fiscal deficit and avoid the imposition of new taxes to raise revenues.
The proposal is not responsive to the twin problems for the following reasons:
1. The savings to be generated is small at about P10-B. This is a miniscule dent on the deficit of P293.2-B and is a meager addition to revenues.
2. The relatively small savings will not be commensurate to the grave reduction in local services and poor beneficiaries for scholarship programs, medical assistance, small but critically needed infrastructure projects in the countryside, livelihood support programs, employment generation, access to potable water, energization of sitios and barangays and needed financial assistance to local government units, all of which are sourced from the PDAF.
In other words, less PDAF would translate to less scholars, less assisted indigent patients, less livelihood support programs, less countrywide infrastructure development, less rural employment, less potable water supply and less barangay and sitio electrification and less financial support to LGUs.
3. The Countrywide Development Fund (CDF), now the PDAF, has been declared valid and constitutional by the Supreme Court in Philconsa vs. Enriquez (235 SCRA 506).
4. Legislators do not personally handle the PDAF funds which are released directly to appropriate implementing agencies. The role of legislators is only to identify priority projects, which is part of the power to appropriate funds as sustained by the Supreme Court; and
5. While the PDAF is suspected to be prone to corruption, no legislator has been convicted. The solution is a strict monitoring of PDAF projects, and errant legislators must perforce be prosecuted and convicted, if warranted. The problem must be addressed but the lifeline for development and poverty alleviation must not be sacrificed.
- Press Release
June 04, 2010
Lakas-Kampi-CMD is fielding Albay Representative Edcel C. Lagman as its candidate for Speaker.
The decision was reached in the party’s meeting at Club Filipino today from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. after Quezon Representative Danilo Suarez, one of the aspirants, proposed for a term sharing wherein Lagman would take the lead for the first 18 months of the 15th Congress.
After Lagman accepted the proposal, the same was unanimously approved by the 35 members of the party who attended the caucus.
Other members were unable to attend because they are either abroad or in their respective districts.
Lagman said, that Lakas-Kampi-CMD remains as the biggest block in the House of Representatives with 55 confirmed steadfast members while 27 members are still undecided whether to remain with the party or to coalesce with the administration party.
Lagman added that Lakas-Kampi-CMD is fighting for the speakership to “uphold the electoral mandate which elected more Representatives coming from Lakas-Kampi-CMD”.
Lagman also said now that Lakas-Kampi-CMD has chosen its candidate for Speaker, he will formally negotiate with the other political parties and party-list organizations.
“I will be serving my 6th term during the 15th Congress and in the past two decades I have been either with the majority or the minority in the House. I know how to fight and defend. The plenary hall has been my ring”, Lagman added.
Lagman also said “he will fight for and defend the House of Representatives and its membership as an independent institution” even as he pursues his pro-people legislative agenda which he has been advocating since the 8th Congress.
PRESS STATEMENT
Tel No. 4155455
Mobile No. 0918-9120137
14 April 2010
I, together with the Lakas-Kampi allies in Albay like Tabaco City Mayor Krisel Lagman-Luistro and Legazpi City Mayor Noel Rosal and a host of municipal mayors and officials will remain steadfast in our support for former National Defense Secretary Gilbert “Gibo” Teodoro, Jr. for President.
Gibo Teodoro is a cut above the rest in competence, capacity, integrity and sincerity.
His politics and campaign are anchored on issues and principles without any mudslinging and character assassination.
No less than Dr. Mahar Mangahas, the dean of Filipino pollsters, in a paper for the Second International Conference of Public Opinion Polls in Cairo, Egypt last November 2009 asserted that:
“The effect of election surveys is small, and may even be more pro-underdog rather than pro-bandwagon. 52% of the voters are unaware of them. 32% are aware but say the surveys have no effect on them. 8% said the surveys have influenced them to switch votes partly to favored candidates and partly to underdogs. 5% said the surveys have induced them to switch to underdogs. Only 3% said the surveys have induced them to switch to favored ones.”
Not a few say that it would be unfortunate and a waste if Gibo Teodoro does not win the Presidency because of his sterling qualifications.
In order to avert this misfortune, we must campaign and vote for Teodoro and prove the surveys wrong because the real survey is conducted on election day.
26 February 2010
Justice Secretary Agnes Devanadera is leaving the Department of Justice with an unfinished business: her failure to answer in writing the letter dated 11 February 2010 of Rep. Edcel C. Lagman on why alleged Legacy scam mastermind Celso delos Angeles is in a condominium suite instead of in a prison cell.
Lagman said that Devanadera’s persistent refusal to formally answer his query “smacks of apparent complicity in the improvident discharge of delos Angeles from the St. Luke’s Medical Center and his transfer to the nearby Cathedral Heights Complex.”
“While contemporary American pyramiding culprit Bernard Madoff is now serving a prison term, delos Angeles is holding political caucuses in the comfort of a condominium suite”, Lagman added.
Devandera must respond to the following questions before she leaves the DOJ to actively pursue her bid for a congressional seat:
1. Why did the DOJ prosecutors fail to successfully oppose the transfer of delos Angeles from his hospital bed to a condominium suite, and bring him instead to a detention cell?
2. Why does it take so long for DOJ prosecutors to finish the preliminary investigation of the many criminal complaints against delos Angeles, including a string of non-bailable syndicated estafa cases?
3. Why are pending warrants of arrest against delos Angeles not served up to now?
Lagman lamented that “after billions of pesos have been marauded from Legacy banks and pre-need establishments, and countless investors victimized, delos Angeles continues to elude and mock justice under the very noses of the DOJ officials.”
“This is a scam after a scam”, Lagman stated.
26 February 2010
Rep. Edcel C. Lagman said that he and his fellow reproductive health advocates in Congress unequivocally laud and fully support the initiative of Health Secretary Esperanza I. Cabral for government to “give contraceptive pills to interested couples.”
Lagman, the principal author of House Bill No. 5043 on Reproductive Health and Population Development, stressed that the plan of Cabral is consistent with the freedom of informed choice on which the RH bill is firmly anchored.
The RH bill provides that the State upholds and promotes the right to informed choice and that “the freedom of informed choice, which is central to the exercise of any right, must be fully guaranteed by the State.”
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