I am, of course, talking about the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), progeny of the Countrywide Development Fund (CDF), more popularly known as the pork barrel.
But why, as chamber of commerce, should we care?
Well, the pork barrel provides many opportunities for corruption. It is tempting. Not unlike the poisoned apple that Adam and Eve were tempted and got corrupted with. It is there, ready for the picking. And where corruption thrives, people suffer. Business suffers as well.
Remove the temptation. Remove the pork barrel allotted to congressmen and senators. They should not have any of it in the first place. They are the legislature. Congress should enact laws, not interpret nor execute them. These are realms of the judiciary and the executive, respectively. This is the basic doctrine of separation of powers.
In the past, legislators can recommend projects to executive agencies, which have discretion to approve or reject the recommendations. Ah, but somewhere along the line, perhaps by “sleight of hand,” the legislators were able to dictate the projects they want (within the DBM menu), and to choose the offices or organizations to fund and implement the projects. Isn’t this unconstitutional?
Still, many legislators fought to retain their pork barrel. For congressional initiatives, they say. One lawmaker cited the benefits from the pork funds saying it helps the needy: foots the bills of indigent patients, burial expenses of paupers, and pays for scholarships of poor students. Bollocks.
Still further, a presidential spokesperson said during a press conference that the PDAF is the “share” of the people in the annual national budget. That the pork funds are being used by lawmakers to address the needs of their people since the government cannot be everywhere at once. Nonsense.
Every nook and cranny of the Philippines has elected officials. As if the local government units are not capable of doing these if you allot to them the money instead. Well, there are also corruption problems in LGUs, but that’s another story.
Anyway, with the lawmakers wielding powers to control the purse, the temptation to steal becomes intolerably seductive to many. They ate the apple.
The recent JLN investigation uncovered colossal misuse of the pork funds directed to bogus organizations—P10 billion in all. That’s our money. The unconstitutional just became criminal.
The criminal part is already in the courts. I’m not a big fan of DOJ Secretary Leila de Lima, but on this issue, I became one. The lady has balls. I trust that she will do everything in her power to bring the criminals, whoever they may be, to justice.
On the unconstitutional part, you could hear roars of disagreement from the lawmakers who argue that the pork barrel is a necessity to them. Then, the Supreme Court declared just a week ago that it is indeed unconstitutional. It was a unanimous vote, too.
Said the SC:
“In view of the constitutional violations discussed in this Decision, the Court hereby declares as UNCONSTITUTIONAL: (a) the entire 2013 PDAF Article; (b) all legal provisions of past and present Congressional Pork Barrel Laws, such as the previous PDAF and CDF Articles and the various Congressional Insertions, which authorize/d legislators—whether individually or collectively organized into committees—to intervene, assume or participate in any of the various post-enactment stages of the budget execution, such as but not limited to the areas of project identification, modification and revision of project identification, fund release and/or fund realignment...”
And then silence.
Actually, you would have heard tears falling into the ground if you’re close enough. What a sad, sad day for many lawmakers. Hehe.
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