Never before has one been so angry just by merely reading this news caption: “P3 B irrigation fund went to Arroyo pals’ pockets”. The impulsive reaction was to curse silently whosoever are the culprits for such bilious and dastardly felony that is beyond forgiving.
Not only the huge P3 B has fattened certain pockets. This was just part of the ginormous P8.8 B for the current irrigation budget of the Department of Agriculture and the National Irrigation Authority that has yet to be accounted for by the “crocodiles” whose appetites are insatiable and unwhetted. Bottomless.
Note this well… Since the late 90’s until now, the accumulated budgetary appropriations total P145 billion to modernize the agriculture and fishery sectors. So, how could there be rice and corn shortage now? How were these billions spent? Just imagine the magnitude of the corruption, what with the avoidable rice crisis, if only these funds were put to honest use. There would have been rice over-sufficiency, angrily exclaimed Jimmy Tadeo, chairman of the Philippine National Rice Farmers Council.
Granting that staving off the runaway rampage of the fuel price as beyond control, the radical doubling of rice and corn prices, is another matter. Staple production could have been at least doubled if the funds for irrigation and overall agri-husbandry were wisely spent, than lining the pockets of the “crocodiles”. Instead of extensive rice production, Tadeo claims, the government has wrongly relied on rice importation and, only now, has it realized its blunder.
Another farmers’ group, the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), laments that almost P40 M of the P3 B was gobbled up by political allies/friends of the president. KMP chairman Rafael Mariano has dared DA Secretary Arthur Yap and the NIA to account where the P3 B total release in two tranches as of March 2007 ever went.
Such gigantic funding as claimed by Mariano, could not have been spent for irrigation works and/or repairs as budgeted. He asserted that none was done in the rice granaries in seven provinces in Northern Luzon since June 2007 where the KMP has provincial chapters.
Indeed, when there is smoke, there must be fire. The apprehensions of the KMP that the irrigation funds could have been siphoned into the admin election expenses, like other government funds, isn’t far-fetched or improbable at all.
And so, KMP is inviting a congressional probe “to get to the bottom of this”. You see, based on contemporary events and government transactions, fiscal and anti-corruption watchdogs, say, the COA, the Ombudsman, or any other investigative agencies appear to be ineffective and/or inutile.
One wonders if the growing downtrend of the purchasing power of the Philippine peso – though appreciating against the US dollar – is the primordial reason that corruption and other shenanigans in government are no longer within the millions or multi-millions. The shifting wind in scams computation has now intensified into billions and multi-billions.
If the KMP accusation on the “irrigation fund” scandal be true – and indications prove so – it could not just be simple graft and corruption. To put it bluntly, it’s mega plunder and mega economic sabotage. And, if true that it involves the president’s men, let Heaven consign them to hell!
Let this be stressed, that the hungry are beyond appeasement, such that, no matter how GMA and her cohorts speak of favorable economic fundamentals including a 7.4 % GNP stat as mere vaporizing trumpery or worthless nonsense, this is nothing to the famished or starved stomachs. It’s a rank insult, just as it was so when Marie Antoinette abetted the French uprising when she stupidly blurted that in the absence of bread, the peasantry be fed with cake.