Remove pork from legislators!

The whole nation is tuned in to the latest drama, latest exposé, about the P10 B+ pork barrel scam. If the allegations vs. Janet Lim-Napoles will be proven true, this drama should not end only with her being duly punished for stealing public funds for many years now. If she is cleared, however, then the sooner this is proven, the better for all, isn't it?

Her flight and attempt to avoid arrest, however, is not at all helping her prove her innocence. If she has nothing to hide, if she has truth on her side, then why hide? If she says she has all the documents to show how she and her family became so filthy rich within only a few years, then, would it not be better for her case if she volunteered and handed in these documents, if she made herself and her whole family available for investigation so that she and her family could be cleared soonest and definitively of all the allegations of stealing public funds?

If proven guilty, the nation should learn the important lessons from this latest exposé on pork barrel. The nation should recognize and be alert to the important message that if proven guilty, Napoles could not have done this grand theft alone. The P.Noy government should unravel the trail taken by pork barrel abusers so that no more public funds will be lost to certain greedy individuals or groups from now on.

The investigation should expose the paper trail all the way to the private banks or pockets of the greedy thieves. The investigation should also expose ALL the pork barrel thieves, big and small, who should be speedily and duly punished for their greed. The process should also ensure the RETURN OF THE STOLEN PORK BARREL. The thieves should be compelled to RESTORE THE HUGE AMOUNT TO THE FILIPINO PEOPLE soonest!

How is pork barrel allocated and released and accounted for? If a transparent, tight system of release and accountability were in place, no one would have been able to take out even a single centavo of public funds, without the proper documentation and authorization.

Reality, however, tells us that such a transparent system of accountability is non-existent or completely ineffective. One only has to check if the pork barrel allocated to legislators through decades has translated into better lives of their constituents.

The continuation of poverty, especially among the constituents of those in Congress, should serve as the best proof and reason for the discontinuation, for the abolition of the pork barrel, for the removal of the huge annual allocation for legislators (P200 million per year per senator and P70 million per year for each congressman or across a full term of six years, a senator is expected to receive P1.2 billion while a representative P210 million each for a three-year term)!

Those who refuse to abolish the pork barrel or those who do not want to remove the pork barrel from the legislators are pushing the argument that if the pork is properly used, properly channeled and not abused or privately abused, so many constituents will be benefitted. Even P.Noy thinks so.

There is no debate that millions of our people all over this country, so many millions of the constituents of the legislators continue to have so many basic needs and services.

It is very clear, however, that for decades now, despite the allocation of so much pork barrel THROUGH CONGRESS, the constituents remain poor!!! Why cannot Malacañang and Congress see that obvious truth and reality?

Why cannot the legislators admit that the allocation of public funds through Congress WAS, IS and WILL continue to be a FAILURE, with huge public funds misspent and not reaching the genuine needy beneficiaries among our people?

Perhaps a lifestyle check should be done among those connected to the allocation, documentation, release and receipt of the pork barrel funds? The lifestyle check should certainly not be confined within Congress but should be extended to include all other public and private agencies, organizations, individuals connected to the pork barrel trail! SEC and other government agencies as well as private organizations and banks should be investigated for their possible role in this pork barrel scam.

Let criminal charges be filed as well to all these public fund thieves for they have killed so many of our people through the years. Let all the abusers be speedily compelled to return all the public funds stolen from our people!

Let this present pork barrel scam mobilize us all to UNITE and DEMAND FOR A STOP TO PORK BARREL NOW! REMOVE PORK BARREL FROM LEGISLATORS NOW!

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