Looking Beyond the Pork

Credit: mwebantu

To be honest, I was drawing blanks when I started thinking of a lead-in to this post, so I figured I'd just blurt out what's on my mind:

It's not just the pork barrel.

Most people are simply happy to crucify Napoles, her daughter, and the whole cursed pork barrel provision in the national budget. These are all well and good. Frankly, just the fact that people are talking about it is a big win already for a society that would rather let media personalities handle the discussion of issues while they watch on the sidelines.


Here's the thing. If Napoles gets imprisoned (with her wealth, she can probably just do an Erap and bargain for house arrest, though, so for schadenfreude enthusiasts there, tough luck), her daughter gets shunned in social circles (highly unlikely - the rich will always find lots of people to fawn over them), and the pork barrel gets abolished (unlikely, as even the executive branch wants it in place; note that the presidential office also has its own discretionary funds), what do those actions really accomplish? I would have to say, not much.

Why? Because even if the pork barrel money is channeled elsewhere, we're still in the dark on how that money will be spent by the new set of people controlling it. It's a grave mistake to assume that removing the PDAF will suddenly result in new schools, better roads, and such, because we're still not privy to how any government letter agency (DOTC, DPWH, what have you) are using their own funds. Regardless of where that money is re-routed, without basic transparency on the use of tax funds, what removing the pork barrel will accomplish is simply taking money away from the legislators (and their Napoles-type cohorts) and into the hands of others, whose budget disbursements are as opaque.

We are a rich country pretending to be poor. Even with all the tax cheats (like how some white-collar workers paid less taxes than public school teachers), the BIR was able to collect US$ 24.2 billion in taxes last year. That's a lot of money, and none of us know how that money was fully spent, and how many more Napoleses are hiding in the shadows, colluding with department heads, in addition to congressmen and senators.

More so, what's depressing is that had there not been any whistle-blower to begin with, the scamming would've continued unabated. With no real power available to the people to use in looking into government spending, we can only sit and wait for someone to develop a conscience to point out errant politicians. And to be honest, those are few and far in between.

When you clamor for the removal of the pork barrel, go deeper. Push for the Freedom of Information Act and clamor for transparency in government spending. Just having those would go a long way in keeping politicians on the straight and narrow, even if the pork barrel provision remains in place. With the FOI, government is forced to tell the people what they spend on, and how much went into those. It would allow media to follow through in reporting issues better, instead of making do with whatever government talking heads gives them. It creates transparency, something that we sorely need from government.

Removing the pork barrel would only change the individuals stealing that money. Putting the FOI in place would let anyone verify where that money goes.

P.S. That house of representatives, whose members saw it fit to let the FOI bill languish in previous years? Mostly intact, because we voted a similar set of representatives (extended to include relatives and such) last elections.