During every election season, one topic that keeps coming up is the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), popularly known as the “pork barrel”.
The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has been demanding the removal of the pork barrel.
In a report on www.cbcpnews.com, CBCP suggested that the pork barrel becomes a source of corruption for policy-makers, who allegedly take a chunk of the money for themselves, when it should be used to fund projects to benefit the people, particularly indigents in far-flung areas all over the country.
This is the main reason why Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo, who is also CBCP’s head for the National Secretariat for Social Action, has previously called for scrapping the pork barrel.
Malacañang deemed this call unnecessary and argued that the administration has put a system in place to make sure that spending of the fund is transparent (www.gmanetwork.com, “Call to scrap pork barrel may be unnecessary, Palace exec”, posted March 23, 2013).
“[Our thrust] is to make sure PDAF is used in accordance with purposes set by law, and there are measures in place to make spending efficient and make the process transparent,” deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said.
On the last week of March, the President vetoed the proposed bill Magna Carta of the Poor, saying that the government does not have enough funds to finance the proposal.
Showing no signs of giving up his cause, Bishop Pabillo reiterated that the pork barrel fund be used for the proposed Magna Carta of the Poor, rather than given to some legislators (www.cbcpnews.com, “Bishop to Aquino: Use pork barrel for ‘Poor Magna Carta,’” posted April 5).
Pabillo disputed that the fund would provide shelter, livelihood, education and health services for Filipinos.
The proposed Magna Carta of the Poor intends to provide homes, food, job, education and health care with a budget of P3 billion.
In an interview with the press, Pres. Aquino’s main reason for rejecting the bill was the lack of sufficient funds needed to mandate the proposal into law.
“In other words, I could have played cute. I could have signed this into law, and earned brownie points, but I know the government wouldn’t be able to meet this,’’ Aquino was quoted as saying in a report posted in newsinfo.inquirer.net last March 25, when he attended the anniversary of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines in Pasay City.
"MAGNETS OF GREED." At the Inquirer Senate Forum held last April 9 at the UP Film Center, Diliman, Quezon City, senatorial candidate Francis "Chiz" Escudero revealed that each senator would get P200 million from the pork barrel per year.
“Sa anim na taon, ibig sabihin no’n, ang dadaan sa kamay ng kada senador, sa pamamagitan ng PDAF, ay P1.2 billion,” the senator said, urging his fellow senators to exercise transparency in spending the pork barrel.
On the other hand, a congressman is entitled to P70 million in PDAF annually, said the report on www.cbcpnews.com.
The claim that pork barrel usually becomes a target for corruption among policy makers is not new.
A report posted in www.pcij.org [website of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism] on June, 1998, entitled "The Perils of Pork" and written by Earl Parreño, stated, “And talks with suppliers and contractors who do pork barrel projects, as well as with Congress insiders, only confirm what critics of the funds have been saying all along: the allocations have become magnets of greed, and it is the very poor who pay.”
THE "PORK" ORIGIN. The report explained that the origin of the phrase pork barrel, “…is derived from a practice during pre-Civil War days in the United States when masters would give their black slaves salted pork in barrels. In 1919, a US journalist wrote: ‘Oftentimes, the eagerness of the slaves would result in a rush upon the pork barrel, in which each would strive to grab as much as possible for himself. Members of Congress, in their rush to get their local appropriation items…behaved so much like Negro slaves rushing to the pork barrel.’”
Meanwhile, a report posted at www.gmanetwork.com on July 17, 2012 and entitled, “A buffet of pork: P25 billion at lawmakers’ discretion,” by Agatha Guidaben, explained as follows:
“The origin of the term ‘pork barrel’ dates back to a time when refrigerators had not yet been invented. It was an old Western custom to preserve meat in actual wooden barrels for future consumption.
“Connoting fat and grease and stored resources, the term has since seeped into ordinary conversations as a metaphor for political largesse.”
SITUATIONS FACILITATE CORRUPTION. Furthermore, in the report on www.gmanetwork.com, Valte pointed out that “the pork barrel funds do not go to a lawmaker but to the implementing agencies, adding that the lawmaker merely identifies projects to be funded.”
She was quoted as saying, “The lawmaker identifies a project under a particular menu and sends the required papers to the Department of Budget and Management. If released, the fund goes to the implementing agency and not the legislator himself or herself.”
Just like Valte's point, the report on the www.pcij.org also mentioned that the legislators, particularly the “congressmen defending their pork insist that the process is ‘transparent’ enough since, they say, government agencies that implement the projects are the ones who have full control of the planning, costing as well as selection of a contractor or supplier for these.”
However, the report also noted a study on the CDFs—or the Countrywide Development Fund, which is another name for pork barrel—to the College of Public Administration at the University of the Philippines, and “disputed the claim that implementing agencies are the ones who have the main control of negotiating with the contractor or supplier.”
The study “points to the lawmakers as the ones who have complete control of project implementation. It also says the implementing agencies only participate in the planning if requested by the lawmaker.”
The report continued: “Often, the proponent legislators themselves choose the contractors or suppliers for the projects. Their choice almost always prevails despite the objections of the implementing agencies, if they have any, the study notes, adding that "such situations facilitate corruption."