EDITORIAL - A word for the pork barrel

Despite all the evils said in its name, the pork barrel does have a peculiar role in the Philippine setting that any hasty move to completely do away with it may result in more problems than it hopes to solve. Caution is therefore urged, not passion.

It is perfectly understandable, of course, to want to do away with the pork barrel in light of the multi-billion-peso scam that has implicated not only politicians but a wide sector of society in the plunder of the people's money.

But the pork barrel, which the Supreme Court hastily declared unconstitutional as if calming the public outrage is more in keeping with the law than making perfect legal sense, is less of the problem by itself than the greed that it inspires and attracts.

To those willing to keep an open mind, there is a practical use for the pork barrel in a country where governance is too centralized in Manila. Given the fragmented nature of the whole national structure, it then becomes quite easy and frequent for the central government to overlook and even ignore our fragmented needs.

Who is to repair a stretch of dilapidated national road in some godforsaken place if its condition is not brought to the attention of some national office in Manila? Who gets to provide badly needed medicine to some remote island if no word is whispered into some hallowed ear of some agency in the capital.

This is precisely the reason why an added function was invented for members of Congress other than just legislation -- so they can do the informing of Manila about conditions on the ground in their areas. If only up to this point, the pork barrel would have been all right.

Even the commissions, which are actually discounts availed in another way, and which are standard forms of gratuity in the conduct of business everywhere, would have been all right. Had the members of Congress been less greedy and contented themselves with the commissions, there probably wouldn't be any scandal today.

But because of greed, they no longer contented themselves with the commissions. They wanted the whole thing. And the only way to do that is to steal it. There is no other way. It is in this way that the pork barrel became evil, through no fault of its own. It is the plunderers who gave it such a bad name.

If only all the pork went to their assigned purposes we might all be even clamoring for bigger amounts. For who wouldn't want development and progress in the rest of the nation to be harmonized and be in step with Manila's. Money by itself is not evil. It is man who gives it such a bad rap.