The Pork barrel is alive and still with us

At the 888 Forum yesterday at the Marco Polo Plaza Hotel, we had as guests, Tourism Officer of Lapu-Lapu City Mr. Rembler Mendoza, formerly National Youth Commission chairman and now Freeman columnist Mike Lopez, teacher Annabelle de la Cerna representing the teachers group and they ended up taking turns in lambasting the so-called "Organizers" of the Million Man march in Cebu slated to be held at the Fuente Osmeña but these pro-Aquino groups hijacked this rally and forced it to go to the Plaza Inde-pendencia with the ultimate goal of sowing confusion and stopping the rally to make it look like the Cebuanos were happy with Pres. PNoy Aquino on the Pork Barrel issue. So in the end, the Pork Barrel is still alive and well!

Let me point out that on Aug.17th Peachy Bretana and Ito Rapadas were tweeting each other and they suggested to call for a Million Man march in protest of the P10 billion Pork Barrel scam when suddenly it turned viral and literally out of their control and the rest is now history. That march was against the Pork Barrel and the fanatical people supporting Pres. Aquino in Cebu took up the cudgels of this supposedly "leaderless" rally in order to diffuse any angst against the Aquino Regime and succeeded in that endeavor.

The rules were supposedly to hold a rally without speeches…yet Dr. Rowena Burden took upon herself to allow people to speak…under her strict terms in not attacking Pres. PNoy Aquino. That in my book is curtailment of free speech! In the first place…who authorized them to be the organizers of the rally last Monday? Above all, who funded them? Was it Ronald Llamas?

I already wrote about how the pro-Aquino groups hijacked last Monday's rally, but since this was discussed during the 888 Forum, Mike Lopez bitterly complained how Dr. Rowena Burden curtailed the speaker's rights to speak up their minds. Since she publicly admitted that she voted for Pres. Benigno "PNoy" Aquino, III, it was crystal clear to us that she was there to prevent people from attacking the president who not-so-clearly announced the scrapping of the Priority Development Assistance Program (PDAF), but yet he insisted on keeping his own Pork Barrel intact.

There is no doubt that while Pres. Benigno "PNoy" Aquino, III has agreed to scrap the PDAF for the Legislature…however we never saw that Executive Order signed by Pres. PNoy scrapping the Pork Barrel. Perhaps Pres. PNoy was merely trying to respect the independence of the Legislative Branch over the Executive Branch, so in effect he wants Congress to scrap the PDAF. But this has yet to be debated and voted whether they should scrap the Pork Barrel or not. So in the end, despite the Million Man march…this issue is still a cliffhanger.

So the big question everyone is asking in their minds and through the social networking sites is…where do we go from here? I dare say we should call for more rallies until every bit and piece of the Pork Barrel in whatever shape or form or name is abolished and rendered extinct! Meanwhile we must keep the pressure cooker boiling until this happens.

Apparently no one has asked why all of a sudden the P10 billion Pork Barrel scam blew up into the national scene? After the rally in Plaza Independencia, I dropped by the office of Sr. Ma. Florita Taylaran, RVM, and reminded her how soon the people have already forgotten that it was only last June 8th, that the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) consecrated the Philippines to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and in less than three months…the cleansing of the nation has begun when the P10 billion scam was exposed to the limelight.

Meanwhile, last Sunday afternoon, I was watching ANC's "Beyond Politics" with Lynda Jumilla interviewing former senator Manny Villar and I was struck by his words when he said, "It is hard for anyone to reform this government."  He even admitted that the three branches of the government have lost its independence. With that said, what Sen. Villar is telling us is that we've literally lost our democratic principles of check and balance.

So is it really hard to reform this government to do reforms or perhaps what Sen. Villar meant to say was that, the political elite that is so well-entrenched in the last 27 years after the EDSA Revolt simply refuses to change things because they have become rich, powerful and comfortable with the 1987 Constitution that was hastily concocted after the EDSA Revolt.

What this country needs is not a regime change as it would only put Vice-Pres. Jejomar Binay in the President's seat. What we need is a system change whereby we put a new constitution in place and shift into a Federal system of government so finally we can move away from the highly centra-lized system of governance which doesn't benefit the majority of the Filipino people even when finally our economy is moving forward.

*  *  *

Email: [email protected].