By Gabriel Bernales
The congressional offices of incumbent Capiz 2nd District Congresswoman Jane Castro and former Capiz 1st District congressman Emmanuel “Tawi” Billiones were reportedly recipients of “allocables” amounting to P8.32 billion.
This is in a report released late last year by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) that covers the years of 2023 to 2025.
According to PCIJ, Castro had a total of P4.24 billion in allocables while Billones had P4.07 billion.
It is unclear what infrastructure projects the allocables were in the two districts of the province.
Billones is no longer a congressman after serving for nine years or three consecutive terms.
In the report, the PCIJ suggested that allocables are the new “pork barrel,” in which amounts of local infrastructure projects are determined by the executive branch instead of the legislative branch of government.
As per the Commission on Audit (COA), pork barrel is government spending for localized projects under the exclusive control of legislators. The Supreme Court has previously declared this as unconstitutional as it a means of corruption and violating the separation of powers of the three co-equal branches of government.
This system differs significantly from traditional “allocables,” which are specifically itemized and determined by Congress during the budget deliberation process before the law is enacted, rather than being discretionary funds allocated after the budget has passed.
Additionally, data from the PCIJ shows an accumulated total of ₱1.1 trillion in allocables distributed to district congressmen across the Philippines from 2023 to 2025.
For the Visayas, the allocables was around P240.82 billion.
But the biggest bulk of allocables went to Luzon with P625 billion while Mindanao had P323.78 billion.
