Trillanes’ Request For 100M Pesos “Pork Barrel” Denied

Palace: Trillanes’ request for P100M ‘pork’ denied

Because of destabilization fearsBy Lira Dalangin-Fernandez
INQUIRER.net
Last updated 06:31pm (Mla time) 12/11/2007

MANILA, Philippines — The budget department turned down a request P100 million in pork barrel funds made by Senator Antonio Trillanes IV more than a month before he led the failed November 29 uprising because of suspicions he would use it to destabilize government, a senior Palace official said Tuesday.

Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Sergio Apostol said Trillanes’ request for the release of the money from his Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), ostensibly for infrastructure projects and to help indigent patients, on October 15. It was endorsed by Senate President Manuel Villar on November 12. Apostol said Trillanes “asked the funds allegedly for certain projects, but we have doubts if it would be used for projects because he has a different agenda; it’s [the money} intended to finance his own agenda."

The Department of Budget and Management, said Apostol, deliberately sat on Trillanes' request because "there was no sense in releasing the funds to him" because of the senator’s supposed lack of respect for government

Apostol theorized that "had the funds [been] released, he [Trillanes] could use those to topple the government. ““While Trillanes is staging coup d’etat, he was also trying to take advantage of this government by requesting the release of funds form the DBM,” Apostol told reporters. “You could see this fellow thinks he could toy around with this government.” He also speculated that the refusal to release the funds to Trillanes may have prodded him to stage the failed uprising, during which the senator and his followers occupied by the Manila Peninsula hotel in Makati City and sought the ouster of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.“I think that is what precipitated [the hotel occupation], perhaps his move to stage a rebellion, because the DBM refused to release the funds,” Apostol said.