Bluffer

Efforts to meet the "fiscal crisis" head on are getting more hilarious by the day.

Late last week, Zambales Rep. Antonio Diaz tendered his resignation from the House of Representatives, denouncing the chamber for not taking the fiscal crisis seriously enough. That was a resounding condemnation of a key institution of government.

But then, his subsequent statements began to fray. It seemed, at one point, that he wanted the Congress to renounce the pork barrel. But on another occasion, he was heard defending the allowances congressmen receive to patronize their constituents.

By Monday night, the renegade congressman was saying something else.

He declared that his resignation was merely symbolic – by which he meant it was a mock resignation. He did not really want to leave the chamber he disgraced by his remarks. He just wanted to get the attention of his colleagues.

His colleagues, however, had another story to offer on this "symbolic" resignation. They confide that the old man from Zambales created a scene because he was unhappy about the committee chairmanship assigned to him: the Mt. Pinatubo oversight committee that nobody wanted.

It seems the old politician wanted better treatment from the Speaker, including being named one of the Deputy Speakers.

Considering his advanced age and the fact that he has been elected and reelected many times over the past few decades to represent his district, Diaz surely had the seniority to claim better treatment. But considering the poor coherence of his public statements and the strange behavior he displayed by staging his "symbolic" resignation, the Speaker was probably right in condemning this character to some purgatory of a committee.

In the end, we were all had. That bizarre sideshow was not an edifying event. We were distracted by a poor bluffer who appeared to be discombobulated by his own stunt.

Meanwhile, as Diaz went about his merry way confusing all who bothered to pay attention to this strange sideshow, the rest of the House of Representatives seemed to be playing bigger – and crueler – tricks on the public.

The House leadership declared that the pork barrel would be dispensed with come 2005.

The public cheered – albeit incredulously. Here at last was some political will being displayed. Here was an assembly of people’s representatives showing the way in making the sacrifices all of us need to make.

But then, some alert busybody pointed out the fiction before it could seep deeply enough in our imagination: the 2005 budget, as it stood, still contained the P6 billion or so that constituted the notorious congressional pork barrel.

Some confused gesturing and a lot of incoherent utterances coming from the honorable representatives of the nation followed that event.

Almost as one, we raised our arms and scratched our scalps. Were they or weren’t they? Was the final symbol of patronage politics, the final symbol of corruption in the legislature, the final symbol of grossly inefficient expenditure of public funds finally being abolished?

We don’t know yet.

Or, as Senate President Franklin Drilon put it, we will know only when the House version of the 2005 budget comes out for review by the Senate.

In the meantime, we are being treated to vague statements. There is little show of solidarity among the ranks of the people’s representatives. There is much hewing and hawing.

And there is a lot of trompe d’oeil – very quick sleights of hand that make things disappear and then reappear once more.

The things we lump together and simply call the "pork barrel" have not disappeared. They have been reclassified: the same indulgences put in new packages, called new names.

I doubt congressional pork will ever be abolished. It occupies such a place of importance in the way we conduct our politics. It is essential to the political survival of the politicians who seek seat in the legislature not so much because they want to legislate but because they want to commandeer state resources to benefit their constituencies – and often, themselves.

The abolition of the pork barrel may yet be the most revolutionary thing to happen in our politics in decades. Without the pork, congressmen will have to try to hold the allegiance of their constituents by doing other things – maybe even by impressing them with the brilliance of their legislative work.

That is nearly unthinkable. In our dishonored practice of democracy, the allegiance of constituents has always been secured by the skill of politicians in bringing home the bacon and distributing the spoils across as wide a swath as possible.

KBL, we call it, for Kasal, Binyag at Libing. In our moments of greatest joy and deepest grief, the poor look to the politicians to foot the bill.

Corruption in this country is not driven by the greed of politicians alone. It is also driven by the misplaced expectations of the populace on what their political leaders ought to be doing.

But if the politicians renounce their traditional right to loot the public coffers to sustain KBL politics, necessity will force them to be inventive. They might end up reinventing the way we conduct our politics.

That will not be a bad dividend from doing things we would not otherwise do if the crisis confronting us were not as severe.

I really hope the leaders of Congress are pretty determined to scrap the pork barrel, in whatever form this sin might be guised. They will not just be closing down a channel through which public funds are inefficiently deployed, a channel associated with much corruption. They might also be opening the door to the renovation of our politics.

But above all, while doing all the bluffing they seem to be doing, I really hope our legislators will exercise themselves getting some of the proposed revenue measures through the mill. Beyond the petty debate on pork, the real issue is whether we can finally build a state that is able to sustain itself.