The De Venecia proposal

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor GUILLERMO TEJIDA III Desk Editor NANETTE L. GUADALQUIVER Busines Editor CEDELF P. TUPAS Sports Editor (On Leave) RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

Is it too good to be true?

Late last week, House Speaker Jose de Venecia was quoted in the media as saying that he would move for the opening of the redoubtable “pork barrel” of his fellow solons and himself to the public, and to subject such funds to the usual auditing procedures.

It is believed that this was one of the proposals De Venecia reportedly made to the President when he was trying to convince her to start a moral reformation in the country, starting with its highest officials. The fact that the Speaker seems to have seen the light after his own son fearlessly tangled with the highest powers, and dared to disclose shenanigans that had all this time been whispered about, but never exposed, may have made the President doubt his true motives. But this is what all Filipinos had been hoping and praying to happen all these years as they watched the frequent anomalous use and abuse of the so-called “countryside development funds”, of which only a fraction reaches the countrysides, if ever.

For so long now, Filipinos have wondered why such big amounts of money – P200 million for senators and P70 million for congressmen plus other gifts and allowances for good behavior – are given to solons without requiring accountability. Some of them hand out a thousand pesos here, a few more there, to help a family with a sick member, a farmer victim of drought, a donation for some constituents whose family member has died, exuding an air of generosity and sharing, without the people knowing that the amounts given out are not even a tiny fraction of the pork, the lot of which goes into their own pockets or family enterprises.

There may be some exceptions, but for the Speaker himself to propose such accounting and auditing, can only be a confirmation of what we all suspect.

As De Venecia put it, all items on which the pork barrel is spent should be itemized, receipted, subjected to audit and publicized. Perhaps he could go one better by making such requirement retroactive, to cover all the millions the solons received in the terms they have served.

Will his measure pass? It could be wishful thinking on our part, but, who knows? There might be others up there who think like Gov. Ed Panlilio, but had only gone with the crowd. We will know who they are when they take the matter up officially.*