Senate President Pro Tempore Jose "Jinggoy" Estrada said Friday he sees nothing wrong with President Arroyo splurging funds for her legislative district in Pampanga as long as she does not personally benefit from such expenditures.

However, funneling government funds to Pampanga does not erase impressions that this is part of her strategy to become the representative in Congress of Pampanga's 2nd district in the May 2010 polls, Estarda said.

"Pero kung ang nakikinabang naman ay ang mga constituents niya sa Pampanga, sa aking palagay wala namang problema," he said.

Asked if channeling some P457 million for various projects in Pampanga was a form of "vote-buying," Estrada said that this could be her campaign strategy.

But Senator Francis Escudero said the President's expenditures in Pampanga "were driven purely by political considerations — her candidacy."

"Governance is about allocating scarce resources. She clearly did not govern in this instance,’’ he said.

“I do not begrudge those who benefited from this self-serving act. But these allocations show how the politics of patronage has become a norm in the past nine years,’’ he said.

Escudero said his own pork barrel allocations had been withheld since 2005 after he figured prominently in the impeachment initiative against the President in the House of Representatives.

Other members of the Senate opposition echoed the same complaint: Malacañang impounded their Countryside Development Fund (CDF), but was very liberal with the release of the CDF of Mrs. Arroyo’s political allies.

President Arroyo had earlier said that she has not unduly favored any congressional district in allocating millions of governments for her legislative district.

“Our (national) budget is more than P1 trillion, and, of course, it would go to different districts,’’ Mrs. Arroyo said during her Thursday visit to a P600-million government relocation site in Calauan, Laguna.

Opposition turfs got bigger allocations
The home turfs of Arroyo administration critics, including presidential bet Senator Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, received much-bigger allocations for public works projects compared to that spent in Pampanga’s second congressional district where President Arroyo is running for Congress, allies of the President in the House said last Friday.

They said the P459 million spent by government in Arroyo’s hometown pales in comparison to the billions of pesos allocated for vital road projects in Quezon City, Surigao del Norte, Palawan, and Bulacan.

These are known bailiwicks of Mayor Feliciano Belmonte Jr., Gov. Ace Barbers, Rep. Abraham Mitra, Gov. Jonjon Mendoza, respectively.

The four elected officials were former Arroyo allies who have joined the opposition camp of Aquino, Liberal Party standard bearer.

Tarlac City, an Aquino stronghold, benefited from the construction of the P821 million Tarlac-Nueva Ecija-Aurora-Dingalan road, said Camiguin Rep. Pedro Romualdo.

Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight, disclosed that the House panel closely examined the expenditures in 2009 and was convinced that political beliefs of leaders in many localities were totally ignored in the implementation of urgent infrastructure projects.

“Politics has no place in so far as the assignment of vital infrastructure projects is concerned,” said Suarez.

Suarez said Akbayan Rep. Rissa Hontiveros misled House reporters by furnishing them “inaccurate” information that barangays in the second congressional district of Pampanga were lavished with huge government funds to finance public works projects. Hontiveros is a senatorial bet for LP.

Suarez said a close scrutiny of the 2009 General Appropriations Act will show that it contains allocations that dwarf the P500,000 "retail projects" like canal-clearing which had allegedly been spent in the second district of Pampanga. (Ben R. Rosario)