Oh My Gulay! Former Sen. Ed Angara swings from pork to veggies

A day after a multitude gathered at the Luneta to show their indignation against “pork” and all the swine who feed on them, former Sen. Edgardo Angara hosted an all-vegetable lunch in Makati City.

Was it in sympathy with all those who are livid over the P10-billion pork barrel scam? Hmmm, yes and no.

Though Angara is unequivocally for the abolition of the pork barrel system, now called the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), the green lunch was actually a re-launch of Oh My Gulay! (OMG!), a nutrition campaign that seeks to cut the country’s alarming malnutrition rate.

Held at the Aracama restaurant on the Fort Strip at the Bonifacio Global City, the “green” lunch’s timing was perfect. As if reflecting the distaste for pork, even if just figuratively, there wasn’t a sliver of pork anywhere in the scrumptious vegetarian dishes served  — from lumpiang ubod and ensaladang talong on a bed of lettuce, to ginataang kalabasa, to malunggay and basil pesto spaghettini, to kare-kareng gulay (banana heart, sitaw and pechay rolls, fried eggplant in peanut sauce).

But “pork” definitely was still on the menu.

“I am for the total abolition of the pork barrel,” Angara, the longest-serving senator post-EDSA, declares in the midst of all the greens on the table.

He points out that before the pork barrel or formerly called the Countrywide Development Fund was introduced in 1989, lawmakers could focus better on their mandate, which was to craft laws.

“We were elected in 1987 and we could concentrate better on lawmaking before pork. The years before pork were my most productive legislative years. I did not need any motivation. Even without pork barrel, I had motivation to work hard,” he stresses.

“Pork is also a distraction,” he adds. (Angara admits that when he cheats on his doctor’s orders, he does so on two things: lechon and coffee.) “Pork is also a big temptation to some.”

Temptation for what?

“Wrongdoing,” Angara answers as he tackles his pork-free ginataang kalabasa.

Oh. My. Gulay.

***

Oh My Gulay! (OMG!), a brainchild and advocacy program of Angara, establishes vegetable gardens in public schools and teaches children the value of eating vegetables through lectures, distribution of vegetable seeds and gardening implements with the support of several donors and foundations.

According to OMG!, 26 out of 100 pre-school children in the Philippines are malnourished, 26 percent of children from zero to five years are underweight, 28 percent are shorter than they should be. There is a 56 percent prevalence of anemia in babies.

Much of this can be addressed if children are fed more vegetables, instead of their usual fare.

 Angara laments reports that one of the foundations that he incorporated in the past, which provided kalabasa-enriched noodles to schoolchildren, has been dragged into the pork-barrel controversy. He says that it was the Department of Social Welfare and Development that released funds to the foundation, whose other incorporators included John Gokongwei, Gina Lopez, Danding Cojuangco and the agriculture attaché of the US Embassy at the time. He believes its incorporators are the foundation’s Good Housekeeping “seal of approval,” so to speak.

“Paano magiging fake sina Gina, Danding and John?” he asks. The foundation has since stopped operations.

Given his true sentiments on pork, is he glad the P10-billion pork scam that has implicated a number of legislators now gone to the fore?

“I am sad for the institution, sad for some colleagues who were unfairly tarnished,” Angara says. He also wants to clarify that it doesn’t mean that lawmakers who got more pork are necessarily more corrupt.

“It could also mean that those who got more PDAF are more hardworking, that’s why they were able to get more funds for their projects. The bottomline is, where did they put the funds? I know where mine went!” he stresses. “I have got more public works projects than the next guy.”

Angara favors the abolition of the special development funds not just for senators and congressmen but also for councilors.

As an alternative to the PDAF, what Angara is proposing is similar to the line-item listing of projects in the national budget, which President Aquino is adopting. “In the US, they call this ‘earmarking.’ Legislators propose projects in the committee or in the plenary, which get to be funded in the budget,” he points out.

That seems easy enough to digest.

***

Is there life after the Senate?

“Multiple!” laughs Angara. “Life after the Senate is more colorful.”

He spends most of his time now in his farm in Baler, where he grows tropical fruits like durian, lanzones and pineapples. During the lunch, he was overheard asking agriculture editor and farmer Zac Zarian: “Zac, how many sacks of pepper have we harvested recently?”

Asked what is the secret of his good health, despite the fact that he sometimes cheats on his lechon and coffee intake (He was ordered to cut down his coffee intake from 14 cups to four): “I don’t cheat anybody.”

His advice to his son Sen. Juan Edgardo “Sonny” Angara, as is his constant admonition to himself, is to focus on the here and now. “Don’t worry on the next job. If you do your present job well, it will take care of the next.”

And his advice to the many who still look up to him?

“Eat your veggies.”

(You may e-mail me at joanneraeramirez@yahoo.com.)