Why you must be in Luneta today
Your presence in Luneta is needed more than ever today. The show of numbers is not just to demonstrate against the pork barrel scam involving some senators and members of Congress.
The outright stealing of money from the “national till†has to stop. It can only be stopped if we restructure our politics. Let us not allow vested interests to mislead us that it is only about personalities.
The pork barrel scam type of politicians thrive under the presidential system we have developed as our system of government from the president down to the barangay captain who are elected by money or popularity. With the “national till†open to discretion, there is no accountability. And when there are no mechanisms for accountability, the result is an impunity that has impoverished our country.
Candidates must be elected on the basis of meritocracy, not on popularity and money. The one man , one vote in national elections makes it impossible to get good people into government.
That is the recipe for disastrous governance that is happening to the Philippines today. If we allow the status quo to continue we will not be able to lift up our country politically or economically. Business is not insulated from the effects of graft and corruption therefore it must partner with activists for the need of reform.
Indeed they are just as vulnerable and would have more to lose if the social apparatus breaks down because of the failure to address fundamental defects in governance. Chaos will engulf everyone whether rich of poor unless something is done. Therefore no segment or interest can be exempted from the duty to straighten out a system that gave rise to the pork barrel scam.
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For the moment all eyes are on opposition senators and congressmen/women who have been singled out by Janet Napoles and her scheme. It has been going on for years.
As my colleague Dick Pascual had already written “there is no way the Napoles scam could have been done what it did without the connivance of line departments under the executive.â€
“Pork barrel, although used as a term for PDAF of legislators, covers all unaccounted discretionary public funds.
“The executive is as much at fault because it dangles the fruits of pork barrel to force Congress to do its bidding. It is well known that the pork barrel or PDAF was used to impeach Chief Justice Corona and used again to pass the RH bill.
“Pork barrel in whatever disguise — whether Priority Development Assistance Fund or discretionary presidential funds — must go while we sort out the mess,†wrote Pascual.
We must not succumb to the media play of putting the blame only on legislators. The entire government from the president down to the barangay captain have been complicit. No wonder we are so poor and with so much undone despite all the tax money and overseas Filipino workers’ remittances.
If we stop the pork barrel for senators and congressmen/women who have misused the fund so must we stop President Noynoy Aquino “discretionary funds.†It will be worse if the power of money and patronage should belong to the President alone. That is not only unfair, but also dangerous.
We know that President Aquino used the pork barrel to control both the legislative and the judiciary to make them fall in line with his agenda.
This is dictatorship in its most vicious form because it is subtle and cloaked by a cover of campaigning against corruption.
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With the Napoles expose, Filipinos have become more aware that the incumbent government was not seriously fighting corruption but using “daang matuwid†propaganda to shield its own brand of corruption. There could not have been a worse time for the SWS to come out with a survey that says Filipinos are content with the way they are being governed. Three Filipinos out of four it says are satisfied with the Aquino government. What?!? It is time we censure such surveys posing as a scientific way to measure public opinion.
On the contrary the survey is being used as a weapon against the commonweal. Just as when Filipinos have become aware of how politicians have been stealing them blind SWS conducts a survey to say that Filipinos are content with the Aquino government. This is the wrong use of a survey.
Instead of helping political awareness grow among the people in their clamor for government reform, the SWS downplays the gravity of political malfeasance. It weakens the ability of Filipinos to challenge government and how badly it has performed. By coming out with the survey in the midst of the Napoles scam it is being complicit with corruption. The SWS survey no matter its claim of ‘scientific basis†must be regarded as a government weapon to blunt public opinion agitating for reform.
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I feel more sorry than angry for a President who has been thrust into a job for which he does not have the experience or intellectual capacity to handle.
What do we do with an executive who in unable to do his job?. In a corporation he will just be fired or made to resign.
He has to go because the country will sink with his incompetence. The survey plus oligarchic media attempt to shield him from reform minded citizens. We have to decide whether we want democratic governance or a government that is now moving to make itself impervious to criticism by using every weapon against public interest.
It has come down to irrational politics with the people and government working at cross purposes. The people say it is blue but the government says it is green and woe to all who should differ.
The survey makes the problems of the Philippines truly beyond solving.,It is saying that the mistakes of government are not mistakes. We are faced with irrational governance.
Worse are the people behind the survey who know that there is a problem and yet are not concerned. The SWS survey has become a weapon not to find out the truth but to stop the public from knowing the truth.
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