Pork is only part of the problem

Stunned by the extent of corruption involving the pork barrel, a growing number of people are now crying for its abolition. How naive these people can get. It is not the pork barrel itself that is the problem. It is the politicians to whom the money is assigned that causes part of the problem.

 But take note that I said part of the problem. That is because, whether they admit it or not, it is the people themselves who make up the rest of the problem. The continued dependence of Filipinos on government and government officials to solve their problems for them is the root of all our miseries.

 The richest people in this country have one common thread running through their incredible stories of success -- they are all self-made individuals who started from scratch. They were ordinary people like you and me who built empires through sheer determination, hard work and perseverance.

 John Gokongwei peddled wares on a bicycle around Cebu. The Aboitizes boated abaca from Leyte to Cebu. Henry Sy sold shoes in a small store. Socorro Ramos sold school supplies on a roadside table. Tony Caktiong had hamburgers in a small shop.

 Being self-made, none of these present-day taipans of commerce and industry ever knocked on the door of a politician to ask for a bowl of rice, or a Biogesic tablet. By charting their own destinies, they avoided giving politicians the excuse to corrupt themselves, and government to be nailed to an unwanted commitment.

 Politicians are supposed to be leaders. They are supposed to take us to a destination worthy of our collective aspirations and dignity as a people. And government is supposed to provide the framework within which leadership can flex its strength in order to exercise its greatest potential.

 But all of these have not been met because leadership and governance have been stunted by too much popular dependence. People look up to politicians less as leaders but as providers for almost anything, even for such a simple thing as Biogesic.

 And they look to government less as provider of a conducive climate for a productive and healthy national life but as warehouse for all their needs and storage for all their sorrows. Even natural occurrences as the weather have become a matter that people believe they can demand succor from government.

 No politician nor government is ever capable or equipped to handle and dispense such demands and expectations. The only compromise therefore is to buy everyone's happiness and contentment with, what else, but money.

 Look at it this way. I do not think all politicians started corrupt. I would like to believe that a vast majority of politicians entered politics driven by a genuine desire to serve, and an honest willingness to make a difference.

 But here is where everything starts to go horribly wrong. Imagine yourself an honest mayor of a fourth class municipality in the province, with a monthly salary of, say, only P20,000 a month. That is a salary that is not even enough to feed your own family.

 But because Filipinos think politicians and the government owe them a living, you are awakened at five in the morning by a knock on the door. Opening it, you do not find a single timid soul but a long line of insistent constituents, each one begging for anything, from a bowl of rice, to fare for the city, to Biogesic.

 And since this happens everyday, including Saturdays and Sundays, you soon discover that your P20,000 salary, which already isn't enough for your own family, needs to be shored up for your demanding constituency. So you begin to look for ways and means not to send anyone home empty-handed.

 You begin to look for other sources of funds. You begin to get crafty in your search, fired by the desire not to disappoint. Eventually you begin to look where you are not supposed to look. And from looking, getting cannot be too far behind.

 This is the story of our country, and of our leaders who got swallowed up and devoured by a system that puts too much dependence on the provision of everything. We do not ask what we can do for our country. We demand what our country can do for us. Abolish pork? Abolish dependence on politicians and government!