Heidi Mendoza to push for law vs pork barrel if elected to Senate

Former Commission on Audit (COA) commissioner Heidi Mendoza vowed to push for legislation to end the pork barrel system in the country if elected senator.

During the “Tanong ng Bayan: The GMA Senatorial Face Off 2025,” Mendoza was asked by veteran journalist Kara David to clarify her statement when she filed her certificate of candidacy, if she will accept pork barrel or not if she gets elected to the Senate.

The former state auditor, however, answered in the affirmative, saying this is to prove that pork barrel funds can be used rightly.

“Pagdating po kung ako'y tatanggap, pwede ho para natin ipakita na pwedeng magamit sa tama ang pork barrel funds,” Mendoza said.

(I can accept pork barrel funds to show that this can be used properly.)

Mendoza explained that prohibiting pork barrel allocations through a law would take a while due to certain reasons. Thus, she said, she would focus on “tightening” its controls.

“Per concept, ang pork barrel po ay minana natin sa Amerika para nagkakaroon po nung sabi natin redistributive—na idadala sa countryside, sa specific district, ‘yung mga proyekto. Nabibigyan ng priority ang mga sectoral needs,” she explained.

(Per concept, we adopted the concept of pork barrel from America so that we can have redistributive—what should be brought to the countryside, to the specific district, the projects. Priority is given to sectoral needs.)

“Kung ako ‘yung palaring maging senador, boboto po ako at magpapasa po ako ng batas na i-stop ang paggamit nito sapagkat iba po ang kasalukuyang panahon ngayon,” she added.

(If I’m elected senator, I will vote and pass a law to stop its use because the times are different now.)

In 2013, the Supreme Court declared the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) article in the 2013 General Appropriations Act and all similar provisions on the pork barrel system as illegal because it “allowed legislators to wield, in varying gradations, non-oversight, post-enactment authority in vital areas of budget executions (thus violating) the principle of separation of powers.”

The SC said the pork barrel system creates a system of budgeting in which items are not “textualized into appropriations bills.” It also said this “flouts the prescribed power of presentment and in the process denies the President the power to veto items."

Mendoza, during the same senatorial debates, said that she is running for senator to bring in an honest and trustworthy lawmaker in the upper chamber.

“Ang hinaing ng bayan, tax ng ina mo, saan na punta? Ako po ay naglingkod ng 27 taon, hindi nagnakaw at hindi magnanakaw,” she said.

(The people are asking, where did their tax go? I had served for 27 years, and I never stole anything, and I will never steal.) — VBL, GMA Integrated News

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