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EDITORIAL
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February 5, 2018
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WHILE billions of pesos were reported lost in the Napoles pork barrel scam, Charter change proponents would like to “constitutionalize” a system that drains public funds to corruption.
The proponents plan to enshrine the pork barrel system and patronage politics in their proposed Federal Constitution, according to former Ilonggo congressman and Bayan Muna chairman Neri Colmenares.
He bared that there is a pork barrel provision in page 1 of the Draft Constitution of Sub-Committee No. 1 of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Constitutional Amendment. This provision states that: “Each district shall be entitled to an annual share in the state and federal budgets for its infrastructure, as well as for the medical, educational and social services of its inhabitants. Each member of the Senate and of the party list shall likewise be entitled to an amount not less than the allocation for a district from the state and federal budgets for their constituents within the region or nationwide.”
It is clear from the provision that an “amount” will be allocated to each senator, each party-list congressman as well as district congressmen.
According to Colmenares, the worst part is, this amount for members of Congress who are national officials will also be deducted from the regional state budget. Federalism is supposed to disperse funds from the national government to the regions and provinces, but this reverses that purpose.
Clearly this is an attempt to reverse the Supreme Court decision that pork barrel in the form of Priority Development Assistance Fund cannot be provided in the national budget. This forced Malacañang and Congress to hide the pork barrel in the budget of executive departments. If this Cha-cha succeeds, there is no need to hide pork barrel in the departments since the new Constitution allows it.
There have been many Cha-chas in previous administrations but this is the first Cha-cha that contains a Constitution with pork barrel enshrined. This is one more reason why members of Congress cannot sit as a Constituent Assembly. They cannot decide on self-serving constitutional provisions such as term extensions, no-elections and giving themselves pork barrel.
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