EDITORIAL - 4Ps baptism of fire: 2013 polls

A former Eastern Visayas governor now running for mayor of a capital city told reporters during President Aquino's recent swing through that region that incumbent opposition officials are using the president's 4Ps program to win votes and discourage attendance in LP rallies.

That is only partly true, of course. Billions of pesos meant as cash doleouts under the 4Ps program cannot be anything else but a tempting source of funds and a ready tool for use as political leverage.

And if it is happening in Eastern Visayas, it must be as well elsewhere.

What is not true, what cannot be true, is that only opposition officials are using the 4Ps funds for political ends. Such a claim defies logic. If opposition officials can do it, why can't administration officials do the same when the 4Ps is their own program?

It would stretch credulity to the limit to assume that only outsiders are dipping their hands into the cookie jar to the exclusion of the insiders who actually own the jar. If that is the case, then the LP only has itself to blame if it loses.

But the LP will not lose. Or at least it will not lose on account of failing to seize the opportunity the great 4Ps presented. Let us not kid ourselves. Everybody regardless of political color is in on this great political windfall that has fallen on the lap of all incumbents.

To be sure, it is good that the former governor formally brought out to the open what had long been quietly observed by everyone else. But other than the good deed, the former governor may have inadvertently opened more than just a can of worms.

By claiming that certain hands are dipping into the 4Ps program for purposes other than what it is intended, the former governor may just have proven how vulnerable, porous, and thus unreliable, the 4Ps program really is.

That it can be used for political purposes only exposes the program for the sham that it really is. Who are the real caretakers of the billions of pesos under this program? Who are the accountable personalities who must answer for this very expensive travesty?