No pork law

Retired Chief Justice Renato Puno suggested that the nation convoke the People’s Initiative to pass a law that would prohibit congressional pork barrel. He believes that, left on its own, the present Congress will not pass a law that would abolish pork as people demand.

That is logical. It would be the height of patriotism and ultimate sacrifice for the nation short of committing suicide if they do abolish their own bread and butter.

Due to the increasing national dissatisfaction with the way President Aquino handles the problem , the chance of abolition is a pipe dream. He, too, would not want to commit political hara-kiri considering that the pork, be as a PDAP and or as DAP are his leash on the members of the Congress.

On the other hand, the irrepressible Bill Gomez suspects that Congress is poised to pass three laws: PDAP, DAP and Hold-Up.

Of course the first is already a law as inserted in the annual budget, the second is, according to former Senator Ping Lacson, a creation of Malacanang to justify the expenditure of public funds and the third is not a law in fact against the law, but results in the combination of the first two.

Lacson says that DAP is a mechanism formulated by Malacanang alone albeit with knowledge and tacit consent of members of Congress who received them in the millions and thus they kept silent.

They are all legalized hold-ups.

While the People’s initiative is clear in the Constitution, the mechanics for such a collective decision requires organization, planning, mobilization and funding. Who will take the initial steps?

The organizers of the million marchers against pork had delivered the message but failed to come up to the million protesters they hoped for. Of course there are millions more just waiting for a time that they, too, can participate, but these have to be mobilized and if past elections are to be the guide, they had to be physically transported to the polls.  

Speaking of Bill Gomez, he reminded me of the role his father, the late Jose Mapa Gomez who, as the president of the National Federation of Sugarcane Planters, contributed to the revolution of Fidel Castro to topple the Batista dictatorship and for that the US gave the Philippines liberal grants in the US quota.

We need people with altruism like Gomez who, though not marching in the street and carrying placards, are willing to help in their own way to materialize the People’s Initiative to pass a law to ban the pork barrel system.

However, while this is a good idea, how practical is it?

The pork barrel system is complicated. It is not a one sentence law that says “all pork barrel in whatever form is banned or declared illegal.”

Who will draft the law? Surely Chief Justice Puno and a host of constitutional luminaries can do that but again, selling to the electorates means campaigning for it.

Do you think the politicians will not mobilize their supporters – beneficiaries of the pork barrel utilized legally – to defeat the proposal?

I think the abolition of the pork barrel is not a solution. We will just be transferring the money from one politician’s pocket to another or from one agency to another.

A wise man once said, put an honest man in a corrupt system and chances are he will get corrupted. On the other hand put a corrupt man in an honest system and he will remain corrupt and even corrupt the system.

So the ideal is to have an honest system with honest men in the system.

Abolishing the pork, but retaining the corrupt, will not change the situation. We will just be moving around in circles.

Therefore, even if the People’s Initiative succeeds in abolishing the pork barrel system, what is the guarantee that those managing the people’s money will use the pork as we would want it used?

Lost in the din is the fact that the pork barrel funds go not directly to the bogus foundations and personalities but through the departments under the Office of the President and that, in these departments, are resident auditors of the Commission on Audit.

If the COA in these offices were not negligent, the illegal disbursements would have been unmasked long ago.  But they were kept hidden which simply means that even if the congressmen and senators are not receiving a single centavo, the system remains under another name and still disbursing to the corrupt.

President Aquino is on the defensive instead of aggressively addressing the scams. This is the main obstacle to the People’s Initiative.*

back to top