PDAF: Should stay sans solons’ role

Generally, Filipinos are trendy and do love to imitate.  However, for as long as we try to emulate good traits or practices, there is nothing wrong with it.  What we vehemently despise though are those practices we copied that have long been abandoned by countries such as those that were then labeled to as “pork barrel-politics”.

For all intents and purposes, pork barrel politics isn’t trendy or nowhere anything new.  The term “pork barrel” has its USA’s pre-civil war and unpalatable origin. In an article written by Chester Collins Maxey in the National Municipal Review, he claimed “that the phrase originated in a pre-Civil War practice of giving slaves a barrel of salt pork as a reward and requiring them to compete among themselves to get their share of the handout”.  After the American Civil war, however, the term “pork barrel” took a different meaning, sadly, in the derogatory sense.  In a very popular story in 1863, “The Children of the Public”, written by Edward Everett Hale (an American author, historian and Unitarian clergyman), he used the term “pork barrel” as an ugly symbol “for any form of public spending for the citizenry”. The term though gained popularity when in 1919, Chester Collins Maxey, in the same piece he wrote in the National Municipal Review, he referred to certain legislative acts passed that were known to members of Congress as "pork barrel bills".

In recent years, the term is taking a vote-generating connotation.  As “investopedia” puts it, it is a “slang term used when politicians or governments unofficially undertake projects that benefit a group of citizens in return for that group's support or campaign donations”.  Frankly, it simply means, patronage politics.

Today (in the country), however, the term “pork barrel” isn’t only used for patronage politics. It is now used as a vehicle by politicians in tandem with some similarly crooked individuals to pocket government funds contributed by honest taxpaying public for their own private use.  The apparent and successful collaboration (such as those done by the lawmakers and Janet L. Napoles owned foundations) that has made the nation several billions poorer is a testament to such abuse.  Consequently, it created a wild uproar and public condemnation that not even the bombings in Mindanao, the declaration of Nur Misuari’s independent state, “Bangsamoro Republik”, Cebu’s sea tragedy and the annually recurring Metro Manila submersion in above-head-deep rainwater combined can suppress.  As a result, some sectors clamored for the total abolition of the pork barrel or the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF).  PNoy, on the other hand, in trying to preempt today’s nationwide rally, has opted to include it as a line item budget (and purely on hard projects) instead of the usual “purely discretionary” approach undertaken by the lawmakers in identifying projects (both soft and hard) and the manner by which these are disbursed.  However, he so stressed that the lawmakers will still identify the projects.  This time though, as line items, these projects should go through the usual transparent manner like public bidding.

Indeed, to some extent, this approach is an improvement but not desirable.  Truly, for as long as these lawmakers will still have a say as to which project to undertake, patronage politics will continue to stay.  Moreover, the fact that they still have such influence, the LGU executives or the national line agencies that shall implement them can still be used to pressure suppliers to part with a sizeable sum to the lawmakers’ benefits.  On the other hand, abolishing the PDAF may not be at all the right solution.  If we leave everything to the national implementing agencies the responsibility to identify and implement projects, the countryside, being far from the decision makers, maybe totally left out.  All major projects will only be done in “Imperial Manila” and we, in the countryside, will only have crumbs to feast on.

Therefore, the most desirable approach is to leave the annual P70 Million PDAF to the congressional districts for hard projects.  In fact, the senators PDAF (the annual P4.8 Billion) should, likewise, be distributed to the congressional districts for greater and more equitable distribution of economic benefits.   This time, however, the congressmen should be totally out of the picture.   Like the Regional Development Council, a council maybe setup in every district.  These can be composed of City and Municipal Development Officers with the participation of the private sectors, say, professional organizations like that of the Philippine Institute of Certified Public Accountants (PICPA), organizations of engineers and the like.  Through this council, project identification can be honestly made and transparency in implementation can be assured.

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