No amount of propaganda by this administration will stem the increasing conviction among most Filipinos that its alleged daan is not really matuwid. Even its repeated boast about P-Noy’s personal honesty and lack of involvement in graft and corruption is now under a big cloud of doubt. And this is clearly manifested by the many questions now being raised by former Senator Panfilo Lacson about the proposed 2016 national budget, particularly the insertions of pork barrel type lump sum appropriations for various government agencies. One way or another this administration cannot dissociate itself from this scandal-ridden pork barrel system.
It must be recalled that at the very start of P-Noy’s term, there were already numerous suggestions that this fund, otherwise known as the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), should be abolished. But instead of doing so, he even increased it three times more than what the previous administration had appropriated for this purpose. And so, during the first three years of his administration exposures and revelations confirmed that this PDAF had been the biggest source of corruption in government.
The biggest and most sensational scandal here was the one involving Janet Lim Napoles and some legislators of the past and present regime which triggered the “Million People March” at the Luneta and the eventual decision of the Supreme Court declaring the PDAF unconstitutional.
Noteworthy and very intriguing to recall in this connection is the special treatment given to Napoles by P-Noy and some of his Cabinet members and cohorts in Congress. Aside from the various photographs showing them cordially smiling together, let us not also forget that Napoles was fetched from Heritage Park and brought to Malacanang by P-Noy’s spokesman where P-Noy received her like a VIP. Then also, P-Noy himself, the president of this country, escorted Napoles to Camp Crame for profiling and finger printing prior to her detention at the hotel like accommodation in Fort Santo Domingo. Indeed, these are events and circumstances showing the connection of P-Noy and some Cabinet members who were his former cohorts in Congress to the Napoles pork barrel scam.
The worse part about this pork barrel scandal is that unknown to all of us, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has even concocted another pork barrel type of fund under the guise of Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP). As later on revealed this DAP has also been used for various shady deals triggering another petition before the Supreme Court questioning its constitutionality.
This pork barrel fund appropriation is actually one of the practices we copied from the United States of America. As pointed out by some people, including some legislators, there is nothing inherently wrong with this practice; it is not inherently wrong to give some kind of ‘pork” to Congressmen and Senators. But like the “pork” in the real sense of the word which poses danger to one’s health, the “congressional pork” may be dangerous to our country’s health.
The real pork or the flesh of the swine admittedly entails so many physically harmful effects because it is so tempting to eat as to incite disorderly and insatiable appetite. Any doctor will tell us that excessive consumption of pork causes high cholesterol that may lead to a fatal heart attack. The same is true when it comes to the excessive use of the “congressional pork” – it may lead to the clogging of the main arteries that serve as the lifelines of the State.
Of course, as we have seen so far, these insatiable appetites of members of Congress to grab their congressional “pork” have caused so many of our countrymen to secretly wish that they just instead excessively eat the real high cholesterol pork.
Money is not really the root of all evil, but the love of money. So the pork barrel is not also the root of evil but the love of the pork barrel by members of our Congress. Throughout the years since we gained our democracy we have seen and experienced the detrimental effects of giving pork barrels to our legislators. They have developed some kind of attachment to it in such a way that they are willing to move heaven and earth and tap any and all resources within their reach and at their command just to win and/or retain the pork laden positions in Congress or even in the local government councils. Obviously they are convinced that they can easily recover the enormous campaign funds they spent with much more to spare out of the pork barrel allocated to the positions they are aspiring for.
Candidates for Congressional posts who tell us that they will not use their pork barrel in order recoup the millions and millions of pesos they spent to win the elections don’t really deserve the seat they are aspiring for because they are either so foolish or just fooling the people unashamedly. Indeed we have this kind of candidates because we have the pork barrel. If we abolish the pork barrel and we will surely get rid of them. In fact this is the best way to improve the quality and qualifications of the members of Congress and the local government councils.
Indeed, the abolition of the pork barrel will surely lead to a sharp decline of aspirants whose main qualification is their capability to spend lots of money motivated solely by the power and the bright “investment prospect” of the position they are aspiring for. It will also cause a significant increase in the number of aspirants with capability to do the job motivated solely by a desire to render public service. Remove the pork barrel and these positions will no longer as attractive as to be passionately coveted. Even the urge to commit election fraud and to engage in “epal” politics will be greatly minimized if not completely suppressed. In the long run, we may even finally see the end of political dynasties.
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Email: attyjosesison@gmail.com