EDITORIAL - Curbing epal

 Lawmakers and implementing executive agencies maintain that credit-grabbing or epal elective officials will not be given any role in the distribution of state-funded aid – whether in person or through the display of self-promoting materials at the distribution venues.

The public is even being urged to take photos of epal moments and report such cases.

If this is a sincere suggestion, the government must disseminate widespread information to the public on the mechanisms for reporting, including sites where photos and comments can be posted. This can be similar to the sumbongsapangulo site for reporting anomalous flood control projects. Mechanisms must be provided for optional anonymous reporting, subject to verification of cases.

The Department of the Interior and Local Government points to its public assistance and complaints center as well as Bantay Korapsyon. A broad information campaign is needed about these avenues for reporting epal cases.

Several lawmakers and Cabinet members have pointed out that the epal prohibition is expressly provided in the 2026 General Appropriations Act. Dubbed the “cleanest budget ever” by lawmakers, this year’s GAA still faces criticism for retaining P150.9 billion in unprogrammed appropriations along with billions in unconditional dole-outs or ayuda that allow politicians to endorse beneficiaries.

Those who crafted the GAA have resisted calls to give up their endorsement privileges over a wide range of aid programs, dubbed by budget watchdogs as “soft pork.”

Long before the scandal erupted over the “most corrupt budget ever” – the GAA for 2025 – officials of agencies such as the Department of Social Welfare and Development have in fact maintained that their rules already prohibit political epal activities in aid distribution.

If there really are such rules, politicians either never heard of them or else saw no need for compliance. In the past years, images of the epals appearing in person or on billboards and streamers posted at aid distribution sites have filled multimedia platforms. These include lawmakers, local government executives, elective barangay personnel and even officials of executive agencies eyeing entry into politics.

Among the aid schemes used for patronage were the Assistance for Individuals in Crisis Situations, the Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers, Medical Assistance for Indigent and Financially Incapacitated Patients and the now scrapped Ayuda para sa Kapos ang Kita Program.

The funds for these “soft pork” ballooned while budgets for de-politicized offices or schemes such as the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. and the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program were either impounded for “hard pork barrel” or slashed.

Apart from providing easily accessible mechanisms for reporting epal moments, authorities must ensure that the reports are promptly acted upon and sanctions imposed. If no politician is punished, all this talk about the epal prohibition is nothing but rhetoric.