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Sunday, October 15, 2017
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ACCORDING to the House Committee on Appropriations, the P3.767-trillion budget for 2018 is pork barrel-free. Really?
While no pork allocation is apparent in how the budget is presented or written, the only way that a “no pork” assertion can be assured is if lawmakers refrain from demanding from national government agency heads for “their money” and the agency heads stand firm in resisting the pressure of these lawmakers.
An example of this pork hocus-pocus was the experience of former Social Welfare secretary Judy Taguiwalo, an Ilongga activist from Negros Occidental and retired University of the Philippines professor.
“There was even one lawmaker who, in an effort to talk me out of my opposition to specific allocation to individual legislators, assured me that it is not about corruption but about patronage or ‘in aid of re-election’, making it sound as if there is nothing wrong at all with patronage, not to mention that I did not buy the idea that it’s just all about patronage,” says Taguiwalo.
When she assumed office at the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), Taguiwalo’s commitment was to provide a leadership that gave no room for corruption by ensuring that fund allocation was guided by the General Appropriations Act (GAA) and by shielding DSWD funds from external forces that sought to influence how the department disbursed its funds and implemented its programs beyond or outside the specifications in the national budget.
After all, what was declared by the Supreme Court as illegal pork is the post-enactment hand of the lawmakers in the implementation of the budget. A number of lawmakers sanitize the pork by asserting that they are merely fighting for the money that they worked so hard for their constituents when they know that such intervention post-enactment is illegal, not to mention, that irregularities, including corruption occur.
With the declaration of the Supreme Court that any form of direct allocation to legislators in the budget is unconstitutional, the former practice of specific amount allocated to a legislator in the approved budget was officially removed from the GAA. But it appears that some legislators have not internalized this ruling or are finding ways to circumvent it.
Not all of us are lawyers but we know that the disbursement of funds is not among the functions of legislators. Their function is primarily and strictly legislative, not executive, but they choose to ignore this and continue to engage in patronage politics. They use pork barrel funds to wield influence over their constituents.
There is a need for us to continue the fight against pork barrel. It did not end when cases were filed against Janet Napoles and her ilk. It still exists and its evils are staring us in the face.
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