Only crooks cling to pork barrels

Nine senators have offered to cut their P200-million pork barrels by half: Franklin Drilon, Juan Flavier, Francis Pangilinan, Ralph Recto, Ramon Magsaysay, Rodolfo Biazon, Pia Cayetano, Lito Lapid, Dick Gordon. Laudable. Then again, not quite. For, the question arises: Why can’t they go the whole hog, like Joker Arroyo who has forgone his yearly share since election in 2001 or Panfilo Lacson who gave it up in 2002?

Pangilinan, who with Recto proposed the cut, says he’s just being practical. "What is important is that we move forward on the issue. The bottom line is to bring about tangible results," he explains. "A 100-percent slash is ideal but unrealistic, since some senators already have committed part of the (pork) to hundreds of requests nationwide."

He didn’t say if he or any of the other eight are among those who’ve promised pork slices to perennial panhandlers. One thing sure, Drilon, after signing the Pangilinan-Recto initiative, announced that he’ll join Arroyo and Lacson in total abstention. Any more takers? If 11 of them ultimately elect to drop their pork and recruit one more, they’d be a majority of the 23 senators. The Senate can then redeem itself, in this time of fiscal crisis, after years of displaying uselessness as a chamber.

The burden would then shift to the House of Representatives. There, the 236 congressmen have been posturing for weeks on the pork issue. At first, more than a hundred of them promised to endorse their P65-million allocations to President Gloria Arroyo’s priorities: jobs, food, education, housing, water, electricity, medicines. Hooray, shouted Rep. Joey Salceda, one of the President’s economic advisers, it’s going to snowball. He cheered too soon. Days later the snowball was for a mere 30-percent slash. Last weekend Speaker Jose de Venecia was mumbling that maybe they’d settle for 40 percent by the time they deliberate on the 2005 national budget.

That leaves to be seen. In both chambers, the order of the day is to cling to pork barrels. It looks like the vote will go this way: all those in favor of retention, say "aye"; all opposed, say "goodbye".

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel, who made his mark in politics in the ’80s as a cause-oriented lawyer fighting the profligacy of the Marcos dictatorship, shrieks that it is dangerous for legislators to give up their pork. For, that would leave only the President to decide where to spend tax money. It would be impolite to slap this aging pol with a copy of the 1987 Freedom Constitution, for which he so passionately campaigned for ratification. If he would care to review it, he’ll rediscover that not one of the 32 provisions on the legislative branch states that lawmakers may spend for or oversee projects. On the contrary, Sec. 1, Art. VII on the executive branch states that "executive power is vested in the President." Further, Sec. 17 holds that "the President shall have control of all the executive departments, bureaus and offices."

For four years after the downfall of Marcos in 1986 there was no pork. As check and balance, the practice was for Malacañang to submit a national budget that details the projects it would undertake. Congress reviewed it, and made revisions by way of moving some funds to other projects. After approving it, Congress exercised oversight powers over the projects’ implementation. Pimentel, who first became senator in 1987, never complained about then-President Cory Aquino’s full exercise of executive power. Why, she even ruled by decree for a year, and Pimentel was her interior minister. What’s good for the goose of 1987 should be good for the gander of 2004. But that may be too complex for an old fogey to grasp.

Sadly, Malacañang reinserted the pork in the 1990 budget, thereby restoring the ways of the old Congress and Marcos-style bribery of a rubber-stamp parliament. At first, it was a pooled lump sum, like Marcos’s, from which senators and congressmen could draw, subject to approval by the budget department. But in 1992 Congress badgered Malacañang to allocate equal amounts to senators and congressmen. At the time, it was P18 million each for the former; P12.5 million apiece for the latter. It has since grown more than 11-fold for the senators; more than five -fold for the congressmen.

What is the pork for anyway? Legislators claim it’s to help their constituents. De Venecia even used last week’s Luzon typhoon destruction as excuse for it: "You can see the tragedy of giving up pork completely. What will congressmen use now in flooded provinces to repair bridges or schools?" One is tempted to yell into his ear: "Nothing, congressmen should use nothing. Malacañang already released initial emergency funds to governors of stricken provinces. Congressmen should get out of the way of repair works. Their job is to make laws, not bridges or schools." Senators who are elected at large, have no direct constituencies. All the more, they should have no pork to dole only to pet, therefore inequitable, causes.

Another excuse for the pork is reelection. Senators and congressmen supposedly need it to stay in the public mind. That doesn’t wash, of course. Joker Arroyo was elected to three terms as Makati congressman, and then to the Senate, without once using his pork. Lacson got more than three million votes for President last May without dispensing pork for two years.

There can be only one reason for the pork: kickbacks. Not a few legislators have disclosed secret offers of 55-percent commissions from encyclopedias for town libraries, or 60 percent from medicines for the poor. Roads are paved with cheap asphalt instead of study concrete, and so thinly at that, because the endorsing legislators skim off 40 percent of the funds. They claim to not have actual control over the money, but they do decide which suppliers or contractors the budget office must pay. It’s a perfected modus operandi. Legislators who can’t let go of their pork can only be crooks.

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