NO PORK, NO DISCRETIONARY FUNDS, NO PALACE CONTROL By Ninez Cacho-Olivares The Daily Tribune, November 21, 2013 Congressional pork, as interpreted by the Supreme Court (SC), is unconstitutional, but even after heaving a big national sigh of relief, don’t think that political patronage is over too, or that the ways of a president like Noynoy, his Budget secretary and his congressional allies are suddenly going to walk the constitutional straight and the narrow after the SC ruling. As long as Noynoy and the presidents after him, are allowed by the high court to continue having discretionary funds in lump sums, whose details moreover should be made to appear in the General Allocation bill to ensure the participation of Congress through the oversight committees, nothing changes, even with such a High Court ruling. Also, if the SC allows Noynoy and future presidents to corner all the savings of government — not only from all Executive departments but also from the Legislature and the Judiciary, then have the president realign these “pooled savings” for whatever he wishes to fund, these claimed “savings” would only serve create the faucet from where pork for presidential control over all three branches of government will flow. This is major reason for presidents and their Cabinet secretaries, who also have lump sum pork barrels yearly, to assert their control over Congress — even if Congress is now officially bereft of pork. Their discretionary lump sum allotments can easily feed the members of Congress, both the Senate and the House of Representatives, with the same kind of pork, or better still bribing, to get them to give what Malacañang wants them to do, either by way of legislative measures passed without question such as the budget laws, or even bribe them to impeach and convict the President’s political foes, or pay off the justices to convict officials who are all seen as political election threats who are his political foes. The congressmen, senators and other department heads abdicate their power of the purse to Malacañang, because they get what they want from Malacañang while the Palace gets what it wants. They pass budget bills without question and mostly without any cuts, and come up with congressional insertions where the additional pork is hidden. Trust me, even if there is officially no more pork, supplemental budget or no, itemized budget or no, congressional lobbying for some members of Congress and presidential allies in both chambers for their favored “contractors” and favored corrupt implementing agencies, with the Palace tenant will still be a means to obtaim unofficial pork. Oh, and not to forget those hidden pork allocations in the budget through congressional insertions despite the SC ruling. For without their pork, in any form, the Malacañang tenant can’t possibly exercise total control over the House and the Senate members, even through their Senate president and Speaker. This would be a nightmare for Noynoy and his Liberal Party officials, especially since they are aware that even their so-called LP allies in the House, who make up the pork-hungry majority, aren’t true blue LPs, as these are the same political butterflies who flit from the one party to the next presidential party. In the Senate, the majority of senators are not the LPs, as others belong to different parties. No pork, no more bought loyalty. And it could prove to be a nightmare for Noynoy because if he can’t give in to what they want, whether legal or not, it would be a breeze impeaching and convicting him. Worse, when another president takes over, which won’t likely be an LP president, as Mar Roxas, along with Noynoy, proved before the nation their incompetence and a total failure of leadership in handling the super typhoon “Yolanda” crisis--unless Noynoy and the Lps cheat again, in which case, another revolt is likely.. Worse, the LP twins even carry the same vindictive and insensate genes! Can the county and the nation afford to have another Noynoy — divisive, vindictive, inept and uninspirational and one, moreover, who does not know and does not care about what is going on or what the pulse of the nation really is as he can control his yellow manipulated survey firms?
Posted on: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 17:46:08 +0000
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