In this citizens’ war against our legislators’ pork barrel or the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), it is understandable how rage is fuelled by initial investigative reports and given more credence with the release of an official 462-page report by the Special Audits Office of the Commission on Audit.
The report itself, while covering only the years from 2007 to 2009, and confined to the PDAF and Various Infrastructure including Local Projects (VILP) under the appropriation of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), it is a must-read to understand how the bureaucracy works.
As per our bureaucracy’s gobbledygook, covered and approved for PDAF release during the period under review were soft projects dealing with education, health, livelihood, comprehensive integrated delivery of social services, financial assistance to address specific pro-poor programs of government, historical, arts and culture, peace and order, and small infrastructure projects such as irrigation, rural electrification, water supply, housing and forest management.
VILP pertained to hard projects under the category of public works, such as roads, bridges, flood control, school buildings, hospitals, health facilities, public markets, multi-purpose buildings and pavement.
The COA report also shows the painstaking work of the concerned government officers (14 team members, four co-team members, one overall team leader, and two directors) who had compiled, written, and reviewed each and every sentence and photo in the report.
Some were useful, others pure deception
It’s easy to read in the report who of our legislators exceeded and “abused†the allocated amounts given at their disposal, i.e., P70 million for each congressional district and partylist representative; and P200 million for each senator.
The annexes also provide useful insight on how the PDAF is able to help many local governments in accessing funds to purchase much-needed goods that otherwise would not have been available in a million years.
Many examples of these purchases are motorcycles, vans, medical equipment and supplies, fire trucks, tractors, threshers, seeds and seedlings, and many other useful items that a small barangay needs, but cannot easily afford.
And while the annex highlights cases of blatant deception in terms of beneficiaries not receiving any of the purchased goods or services, as well as the involvement of spurious and non-existent conduit organizations or companies, it also speaks about actual benefits that have accrued to many who really needed help.
This is understandable since bulk of the money that did not fall into the evil pork barrel scam purses did really find its way to useful or needed projects of local governments. As P-Noy has said, PDAF had been created with noble objectives; it’s the implementation that’s faulty.
Loopholes
The PDAF, which was called the Countryside Development Fund during the presidency of P-Noy’s mom, Cory, had always been prone to abuse. Even then as a measly P2.3 billion fund under the CDF, there had been reports as to how appropriations were misused.
While it’s true that it was the previous president, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who initiated raising the pork barrel allocations to its current bloated number, the current PDAF is but a fraction of the proposed P2.3 trillion national spending. Still, it remains to be taxpayers’ hard-earned money that must be spent judiciously.
Therefore, as the debate continues on whether the mechanism is to be reformed or radically scrapped, care must be taken to ensure that the source of funding for local government projects and needs, especially those deemed necessary to respond to crises or emergencies, is continued.
More importantly, those legislators who have been found to have erred or acted irresponsibly in the disbursement of their allocated PDAFs need to be punished.
The President has said that cases will be filed soon, but that the litigation period would likely take beyond his term, which ends in 2016. These, apparently, will not be as simple as the criminal cases that Janet Lim-Napoles of the controversial JLN Group of Companies will face.
Pandora’s Box
Another matter that must not be forgotten pertains to our government auditing’s impartiality. While the current COA seems to enjoy the full support of the current administration, can it withstand the pressures not to implicate lawmakers deemed guilty but associated with or are in the good favors of P-Noy?
In fact, why stop with the PDAF audit for 2007 to 2009? Definitely, there will be more stories to unearth if an investigation of previous years’ spending is started. And for sure, there will be something to chew on if the period of 2010 onwards is initiated.
The JLN case is definitely just part of the whole system of corruption, one which not only implicates senators and congressmen, but even ordinary citizens who continue to wrongly believe that it is their elected officials’ duty to cough up money to defray expenses for a kin’s funeral, baptism, marriage, or sickness.
Just as we demand that our leaders live an exemplary life of service and dedication to the people without any hint of dishonesty, so should we, the citizens, not cause our leaders to stray from the righteous path.
Let me end this column with a few sentences worth pondering from Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls: “He did not care for the lying at first. He hated it. Then later he had come to like it. It was part of being an insider but it was a very corrupting business.â€
Those who wish to read the whole SOA/COA report may download it from www.rappler.com/nation/36601-coa-audit-report-pdaf-2007-2009.
Collegiate basketball ongoings
The competitions at CESAFI-Cebu, the major collegiate league in Southern Philippines, have started with South Western University Cobras determined to retain the championship won last year. The top three teams of CESAFI are seeded in the Round of 16 step-ladder phase of the Champions League (PCCL) 2013 National Collegiate Championship.
Visit www.CollegiateChampionsLeague.net for more news about the collegiate basketball circuit nationwide.
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