Former Pres. Estrada, by taking the radical move, showed to his people the kind of hard stuff his screen image projected. His bold stand enhanced his macho personality. Up to that point, I really thought he was good only for acting well-written scripts. I was one of those presumptuous detractors of his who jeered at his "less penetrating mind". But then he surprised me. He proved that there was something cerebral between his ears when he claimed that the pork barrel was the largest portfolio for corruption or words to that effect. Without having to confirm the public perception that the pork became, to some legislators, their source of largesse, Estrada, in effect, spearheaded a meaningful change.
His espousal could not be wrong. The former president was theoretically correct that the main function of congressmen and senators was law making. In the art of legislation, there is no need for the pork barrel, just focused mind.
At the start of his kind of erstwhile crusade, Estrada knew he was to fight established, mostly crooked, practitioners of the system. Many of his loyal supporters (and some politicians who turned their coats to become his new-found political allies) were accustomed to their pork barrel mentality. To keep the legislators' coffers empty was most difficult to accomplish. Thus, the former president's audacious idea slammed against a threat of political blackmail. If, towards the later part of his unfinished term, Estrada somehow capitulated, it was largely because his henchmen were unmoved on their new golden rule: "He who has the gold, rules".
Excuse me if I took a long route. I wanted to lay some foundation of the new golden rule. According to my elementary teachers of yore, it used to be "do unto others what you would want others do unto you". Not anymore. To repeat, it had become what I said above.
As I wrote this article, I tried to keep pace with a tv program discussing a part of the now publicized 2006 national government proposed budget. Out of the more than a trillion-peso outlay, Her Excellency, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, was looking to appropriate for her own humongous and unprecedented pork barrel. The rationale, revolutionary as it could be, was to allow the president an elbow room to fund needed local government efforts.
This direction is expected of Pres. Arroyo. She has to have ready funds for the year 2006 in order to favor requests from cost oriented sub-alterns. To complete her term and, perhaps, beyond, she needs the kind of financial portfolio which she reportedly delivered the "knock-out blow" in the impeachment proceedings. In other words, Pres. Arroyo needs to posses the gold so that she rules.
The "strong leadership" in our president does not show. Rather her being a politician, of the traditional kind, is obvious. Ensuring political patronage is the only clear objective of amassing huge pork barrel. With it, she can buy favor of local leaders even if their projects may not contribute to a holistic national advancement.
Unfortunately, that is what we do not need now. Faced with an impending worldwide economic upheaval, we should instead, maximize our resources on programs that are determined necessary from macroeconomics perspectives. Least expense for maximum benefits. The president does not need to buy favors, only to finance programs that shall secure the state affairs from economic battering rams. If past Pres. Estrada could have started it right by removing pork barrels, Pres. Arroyo can do better renouncing her greed for it.