Letter to the Editor - Why budget billions for excess pork?

There's a Latin adage that states that "Moneta est justum medium et mensura rerum commutabilium, nam per medium monetae fit omnium rerum conveniens, et justa aestimatio." (Money is the just medium and measure of commutable things, for by the medium of money a convenient and just estimation of all things is made).

So, the President of the Philippines presents to Congress over a trillion-peso budget and in it is included over six billion pesos in pork barrel funds conveniently called "Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF)." These are the much-hated funds that are spent during election time by our legislators. Right after the most recent national elections, many people, including church leaders, declared that the pork barrel funding is a "source of evil" and therefore, of corruption. I wonder what had happened to those widely publicized popular demonstrations against it.

In the SONA of PGMA, she claimed that the form of government in the Philippines today is allegedly one of the prime reasons why the presidential form government and the current constitution should be replaced with a parliamentary form of government. But no matter what form of government the Philippines could eventually have, if the "evils" of corruption are hidden in the guise of "development assistance funds," no government can prosper because one of the prime causes of evil is still present.

If there ever is a new constitution, I dare say, that it could be inscribed in 24-karat gold in all its pages, a cover in palladium, and supine in platinum, but it wouldn't wipe out the evils of corruption because it is built-in the system. And PGMA says, it's the government? How could it be when her office did the preparation of the national budget.

What is the rationale of the pork barrel funds anyway? Is it to assure the legislators that they can use grease during election time? A government that is determined to crusade for good governance should do it without strings attached. As the president is on her last term of office, she can do a lot without her hands tied behind her back. However, if she has to rub some people's elbows because she owes them favors, then it isn't clean governance, after all. There's another Latin dictum which states: Dolus et fraus nemini patrocinentur. Deceit and fraud shall excuse or benefit no man!
Dr. Jose Lucero Bonpua Jr.
President, CEO
The Museum of Sacred Art, Inc.
888 Calle San Jose, Oslob, Cebu