Those who thought that President Noynoy Aquino would somehow listen to public opinion and reverse his previous position in favor of Congress’ pork barrel funds can stop dreaming. Aquino, who apparently took all weekend to think about the matter while he was supposedly sick, came out yesterday with his most unequivocal defense yet of the controversial funds. “Like anything else, there is a right way of using [the funds] and there is a wrong way,” Aquino explained. “Perhaps what is reasonable is to punish those who misused the funds [and] help those who used the funds properly to directly help communities, especially those outside the capital region.” Aquino said that he, too, had not wanted to use his pork barrel funds when he entered Congress. But he said he quickly learned that the funds can be put to good use, like when he used his allocation to repair a flood-prone portion of MacArthur Highway in his hometown of Tarlac. Instead of abolishing the funds, Aquino proposed “more restrictions and safeguards [and better] monitoring of the implementation” of projects bankrolled by Congress’ Priority Development Assistance Fund, as pork is officially known. That, and the filing of “airtight” cases against lawmakers and everyone else who misused the funds, as he promised in his last State of the Nation Address, is the way forward, according to Aquino. Aquino, during his weekend convalescence, must have certainly weighed the pros and cons of sticking unwaveringly to his pro-pork position, especially since public anger has continued to snowball over the reported exploits of businesswoman Janet Lim Napoles. And now that Aquino has once again defended Congress’ pork, he has also put himself on a collision course with citizens’ groups that have been mobilizing to pressure the administration to scrap PDAF. Indeed, this Monday, a public holiday earlier designated as National Heroes’ Day, a broad, non-partisan coalition intends to hold the first of a series of mass actions at Manila’s Rizal Park to demand that Aquino and Congress abolish the scandal-plagued pork barrel funds. Organizers of the rally, which seeks to gather the support of a million Filipinos against Congress’ PDAF, have taken pains to point out that they have no ideological or party affiliation, and that their only goal is to take away the pork from lawmakers in both Houses, who can certainly be expected to fight such a proposition. And now, Aquino, who has actually expanded PDAF under his administration to keep Congress under control, has sided with the lawmakers. In doing so, the President has let a golden opportunity to institute reforms in the Senate and the House of Representatives pass—to say nothing of a chance to show the people that “daang matuwid” is not just a slogan to get him elected in 2010. Of course, Aquino never promised to abolish pork as a candidate and has not once hinted that he intended to do so in the three years that he has been in office. He’s just being consistent in his defense of the pork that powers Congress and keeps it from doing things like impeaching the President. So be it, then. Now you know who Aquino’s “bosses” really are—and they aren’t you and me. * * * I’d like to praise the Commission on Audit for coming out with a study on the bloated amounts of pork that were given to lawmakers in the past. But I can’t, since CoA has decided, apparently on its own, to limit itself to investigating PDAF allocations from the years 2007 to 2009. Why CoA Chairman Grace Pulido-Tan thought people would be satisfied with such a limited audit, only she can explain. But Pulido-Tan has apparently fallen into the same trap (or hewed to the same strategy, take your pick) where only lawmakers who served in the previous administration—and who are now identified with the opposition —are guilty of misusing their PDAF allocations. This is the same self-censoring mechanism that generated the patently false line that Napoles only worked with members of Congress who are not allies of Aquino, when the reports first broke a month ago. And anyone who has followed the story knows that, until she started feuding with her own associates at the beginning of this year, the businesswoman was freely plying her bipartisan and bicameral trade at both Houses over a period spanning two administrations. The other thing that underwhelmed me about Pulido-Tan’s release of her audit data was her insinuation that officials of the Department of Budget and Management “may have been involved” in the pork barrel scam perpetrated by Napoles. Madam Chairman, as the agency disbursing the funds to Napoles’ bogus NGOs, of course DBM is involved—it’s been involved since the Cory administration, when Congress’ pork returned in its current form. But I still thank God for small mercies. At least, I no longer hear from Justice Secretary Leila de Lima that citizens who see Napoles should arrest her. De Lima’s own people alert Napoles that she is to be arrested and allow her to disappear—and now they want me to nab her on sight? De Lima has said so many stupid things in the past, but this has surely got to be the most brain-dead of her pronouncements so far.
Posted on: Fri, 30 Aug 2013 04:05:04 +0000
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