A PORK BARREL BY ANY OTHER NAME WOULD SMELL AS STINKY

 

What is pork barrel?

Pork barrel refers to lump-sum, discretionary fund allocated to legislator for local pet project.

Refresher: Which of the following items is pork barrel?

a. Support for Local Development Projects (SLDP)

b. Country Development Fund (CDF)

c. Congressional Insertions (CI)

d. Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF)

e. All of the above

All of the above. SLDP was put in place in 1982 during the martial law era; CDF, 1990, Cory Aquino; CI, 1998, Ramos; PDAF, 2000, Estrada.

“Koko Pimentel blasts DPWH P544 billion lump sum budget” (Inquirer headline)

We ought to pat Senator Pimentel on the back in blowing wide open this issue. His concern is easy to follow. The Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission identified last year the most “problematic” government agencies based on corruption reports – DPWH topped the list.

“Lump sum [budgeting] is the work of lazy people.” (Senator Pimentel)

The senator’s statement above is a skin-deep view of the issue at a glance – a snapshot of typical Pinoy’s Juan Tamad stripe.  I had my share of such do-nothingness moments. In my early days as a new kid on the civil engineering block, there were happy-go-lucky times when I was not in tip-top condition in doing my job in the workplace.

Like one instance I was estimating the cost of a proposed construction work. As always, I factored in materials, labor, and equipment. Then, as a rule, I asked myself: Did I miss anything? Aha, of course, the contingency. What’s that? I filled in such item due to a degree of statistical certainty of rising unpredictable specific costs whose amount I assumed at a level so that the desire in having liquidity would balance with the need in controlling risk. Ho-hum.

It’s a technical gobbledygook. Put simply, my head ached (aka hangover) from too much drinking the night before and I just felt too lazy to think and do the detailed analysis and computations. So, I just put in a big bulk lump sum amount so my cost estimates would not fall short. In other words, a contingency is a lump sum I put in – just in case – a side effect of a lazy mindset then.

Like in basketball -- no harm, no foul.

“What I fear the most is it could be a rich source of pork barrel funds.” (Senator Pimentel)

Now, the senator has dug deeper and his statement above is deep-rooted and foreboding – while stressing the word “fear.”

“This is no small amount. The P544-billion lump sum fund is equivalent to 75 percent of the total appropriation of the DPWH for next year. Lump sum funds lack details. The policy of the law is ‘line item budget,’ meaning as detailed as possible.”(Senator Pimentel)

No less than the former Chief Justice Antonio Panganiban in his Inquirer column raised this question: “Do the lump sums in the 2023 budget constitute a form of pork barrel that could be scuttled using Belgica v. Ochoa?”

Senator Pimentel’s no-nonsense words are far-reaching, being mindful of the seriousness of PH’s present plight as laid bare by the following dismal performance that has caught the eye of the world.

“[PH] standing in Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index has dropped two places, ranking 117^th out of 180 countries for 2021[…] Since the election of Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines has also seen a sharp decline in freedom of association and freedom of expression, making it harder to speak up about corruption.” (CNN Philippines)

“In a 2022 CEO survey conducted from July to August this year by the PricewaterhouseCoopers Philippines and the Management Association of the Philippines, 67 percent of 119 business leaders ranked corruption [in PH] as the No. 1 economic obstacle.” (Inquirer)

“Among the 15 countries in East Asia and the Pacific that were included in the [Rule of Law Index of the World Justice Project], the Philippines remained in 13^th place, ahead only of Myanmar and Cambodia.” (Philstar)

Senator Pimentel’s word “fear” is well-chosen. Does it make sense? Definitely. Let’s rewind a bit of our nation’s political soap opera to give us the full picture and fathom the depth our country has come down with corruption.

The year 2013. PH went down the tubes for the infamous PDAF scam or the pork barrel scam – a political scandal involving 28 members of Congress who allegedly pocketed P10 billion in taxpayers’ money through the misuse of the PDAF fund.

Modus operandi. Lawmakers funded “ghost projects” using their respective PDAF funds and “implemented” through the companies of businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles, the scam’s mastermind, with no tangible output. Why none? Napoles’ companies consisted of fake foundations and NGOs with Napoles’ employees, including her nanny, as incorporators. Each foundation or NGO had bank accounts where PDAF funds were deposited. Having taken a peek at the scam, we could figure out the utter corruption of the whole shebang.

I had a brush with the PDAF scam in the thick of the scandal. A contact tipped me off to pay a visit to a particular NGO to link up with Couples For Christ/Gawad Kalinga’s work with the poor. When I had gotten to the NGO office address given, I came upon a residential house owned by a family – clueless about the NGO office located right inside their own home. It opened up to me the clear-cut meaning of “ghost projects” and “fake NGOs.”

To the bitter end, the top 5 members of the Congress identified by the Inquirer as participants in the PDAF scam with the respective amounts (above P100 million) exposed (Source: Wikipedia), are as follows:

Bong Revilla – P1.015 billion

Juan Ponce Enrile – P641.65 million

Jinggoy Estrada – P585 million

Rizalena Seachon-Lanete – P137.29 million

Bongbong Marcos – P100 million

Revilla, accused of having received the biggest kickback at P224.5 million, was released due to a lack of evidence. Napoles and Revilla’s staff were found guilty and sentenced to reclusion perpetua or a maximum of 40 years in prison. Enrile and Estrada, out on bail, are still awaiting the verdict. The high court granted Enrile bail due to his old age and frail health.

Lanete was perpetually disqualified from public office. Bongbong Marcos claimed that the investigation into the scam was politically motivated.

The trio: Revilla, Enrile, and Estrada made a senatorial comeback. Revilla and Estrada are now our country’s senators. Enrile is now the Chief Legal Counsel of President Bongbong Marcos.

Onli in da Pilipins.

Although declared by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional, could a pork barrel reinvent itself? An insight reflected by the “Conflict of Interest” definition by the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption may shed light on the answer which I paraphrase: “Conflict of Interest” is being in a SITUATION where public officials are being PERCEIVED to maybe unduly benefitting from their official positions. It is a two-pronged forewarning out of a SITUATION and a PERCEPTION, not an action. (Exhibit A: Sec. Remulla’s dilemma re his son’s drug case)

“For Congress to allow lump-sum appropriation (a pork barrel with no name?) in the budget is tantamount to giving the executive a blanket authority to spend, in the case of DPWH, P544 billion at its own discretion.” (Senator Pimentel)

To rephrase, Congress will place the Executive branch in a SITUATION where the latter will be PERCEIVED to unduly benefit from likely acts of grave abuse of discretion based upon the infamy of the PDAF scam.

Senator Pimentel’s proactive use of the word “fear” is chilling but befitting. I recall the “Billy Graham rule”: He would never place himself in a situation -- alone in a room with any woman other than his wife or daughter.

In a light vein, a food for thought to wrap up this article: Never place Dracula in a blanket-authority situation -- where he would be in charge of the blood bank.

Head still photo courtesy of Brett Sayles @ pixelsdotcom