A first? As in: never been done? For this "first" to occur, the professors warned, what will be required is "unprecedented cooperation and open-mindedness among the country’s political elite as well as a great deal of forbearance and capacity for sacrifice among the people". The operative word is "unprecedented", meaning that there is no historical precedent for the kind of cooperation and open-mindedness that this current crisis demands of the political elite. For our UP professors, it is largely a question of the quality of this nation’s leadership.
I thought at first this portentous statement of the U.P. professors was just another example of ivory-tower pessimism. But after witnessing the political leadership in both our Executive and Legislative departments take their sweet time in adopting the revenue-raising and cost-saving measures necessary to survive the crisis, I now believe the U.P. professors had a good point. And since many of the authors of the paper themselves had previous experience as government economic planners, it is obvious their technical expertise was tempered by a healthy dose of political realism.
Let’s take two of the most widely discussed aspects of these proposed cost-savings measures: A reduction of internal revenue allotments (IRA) of local governments from 40 percent to 30 percent, and a halving of the Priority Development Assistance Fund, popularly known as pork barrel, of senators and congressmen. Senators’ pork would be cut from P200 million to P100 million, and congressmen from P70 million to P35 million. The estimated savings from both measures would be P35.2 billion in the case of IRA reduction, and P10.7 billion from cutting the pork barrel of the legislators.
Today, about six weeks into the first session of the Congress and less than two weeks from its first three-week recess, it behooves us to ask where – exactly – we are on pork barrel and IRA. The short answer is that neither is anywhere near adoption in the 2005 budget. This year, of course, is already down the toilet, since pork and IRA are unchanged in this year’s budget which is a re-enacted 2003 budget. Last year, Congress could not agree on the 2004 General Appropriations Act.
In the case of the pork barrel, both senators and congressmen, at the outset, wallowed in the usual grandstanding, with nine senators and about 25 congressmen loudly proclaiming that they would totally forswear any pork and would excise it completely from the 2005 budget. After the thunderous applause died down, people noticed that nine out of 24 senators and 25 out of over 200 congressmen don’t make a majority in either House.
Now we hear that pork is still in the 2005 budget. In the guise of "line-item budgeting", as opposed to "lump-sum appropriation", legislators would still have the power to identify projects. But it appears Speaker Joe de Venecia is facing a "revolt" from congressmen who claim that no agreement on pork’s abolition or reduction has been reached and that all the political parties have decided to "sleep on it". Thus, our congressmen sleep on and the rumors of the death of pork are greatly exaggerated.
The pro-pork legislators would also like to call attention to the Executive’s own pork barrel, namely the typically enormous intelligence and confidential funds of the President and most Cabinet Secretaries. In this on-going game of one-upmanship, each side proclaims, usually before specially-called press conferences, that it will gladly surrender or reduce its pork if the other side also reduces its pork. This pork war is still raging. So far, nobody’s pork has as yet been reduced, much less abolished.
Indeed, a vigorous counter-attack has been launched by legislators who now extol the virtues of pork. An informal coalition of administration and opposition solons, aided and abetted by – surprise, surprise – sectoral representatives, has suddenly discovered all those good things that pork can do. This is apart from tradpol congressmen who unabashedly justify pork as their only means of delivering on their electoral promises of public works, health services and educational benefits (like scholarships) to their constituents. All these politicians chorus that removing pork is tantamount to cruel and unusual punishment inflicted on the people they so lovingly serve.
As for IRA, I’m sure you’ve read those warnings of local officials that reducing their allotments would mean that many local hospitals would allegedly have to be closed, some teachers laid off, necessary services of government reduced to intolerably insufficient levels, and local infrastructure projects scrapped. No one mentions those new cars of local officials, those impressive new capitols and municipal and city halls, those bloated staffs.
Opponents of IRA reduction even cite current law which requires, as one condition to an IRA cut-back, that the President must publicly declare an "unmanageable public sector deficit". The catch here is that the President could trigger adverse reactions from potential investors and creditors by confessing the inability of her government to meet its financial obligations. Moreover, the Budget Secretary has, more than once, insisted that the nation is managing to meet all current obligations. So far, therefore, the prospects of an IRA reduction look truly grim.
In sum, in both cases of pork barrel and IRA, we have not seen that "unprecedented cooperation" among our political elite which assures us that proposals for cost-saving measures will indeed be adopted. Initially, it was thought that these two measures, cutting pork and IRA, would elicit overwhelming public support and be easily approved. No such luck. But if we can’t even get this done, what about the other more profoundly painful cost-cutting and revenue-generating measures which we need to put in place now to avert economic collapse? Those UP professors must know something we don’t.
ERRATUM: The author of the "Roadway to Fiscal Rehabilitation" is Representative Joey Salceda, not Saludo. Sorry, Joey. RVP.