Changes

P-Noy dared his critics to impeach him, so they obliged and filed a complaint yesterday. Of course from experience during the previous administration, you and I know, as much as P-Noy does, that impeachment is a game of numbers. And right now the numbers are with P-Noy so the complaints are DOA at the House of Representatives.

So let’s focus instead on what can be fixed in our dysfunctional system. Now that we know how pervasive the pork barrel system is, what are we going to do about it?

 Politicians must go along with a general overhaul of the budget system all the way down to fund allocations for the barangays. The overhaul should include the Sangguniang Kabataan or youth councils, even if the SK elections have been suspended and the councils now look headed for abolition (hurray).

The overhaul should end the long-standing practice of allotting each senator and House member huge amounts from the annual appropriation, whose utilization is left to their discretion, with no one daring to scrutinize the process to guard against abuse.

The present system gives lawmakers such wide latitude for selecting projects and programs for funding, with no rules compelling transparency and compliance with auditing and procurement laws. The system is begging to be abused, allowing lawmakers to be as whimsical as they want in their earmarks and to use the system for their personal enrichment.

As we are seeing now, abuse is exactly what most lawmakers did. For decades there was honor among thieves and no pot was prepared to call the kettle black. Also, until the pork barrel scandal, we thought no one in this country except Jose Velarde signed incriminating documents, in the presence of a witness to boot. So ordinary folks could only smell something fishy and jump to conclusions, noting that the wealth of most of those who joined Congress and local governments rose exponentially.

These scandals help explain why people are willing to commit murder to eliminate rivals for elective positions with modest pay, and why politics is a family business in this country, with dynasty-building at its most brazen in this year’s elections.

Now that we are starting to get some answers, reforms should follow. And the reforms should be allowed to take root so that people will become so used to enjoying the dividends that the reforms become irreversible.

For starters, those individual congressional fund allocations will have to go. Allocating P200 million each in earmarks per senator and P70 million per congressman, including party-list representatives, complicates long-term, coordinated development planning and implementation.

The system is supposed to prevent the president from playing favorites and excluding political foes from development thrusts and state funding. But if transparency rules are built into the budget process, you can easily tell when Malacañang is playing favorites and neglecting certain areas over partisan considerations. Public displeasure over favoritism can always be expressed every three years, through the ballot.

 As required under the Constitution, the House, with the Senate concurring or proposing amendments, will still have a major say in the annual General Appropriations Act (GAA).

Instead of giving each lawmaker a free hand, however, in deciding how individual pork barrel allocations will be utilized, the executive can lay down its development and other program priorities for the fiscal year. In line with this menu of priorities, each lawmaker will propose projects or programs within his constituency or (in the case of senators) pet sector that can be funded, with the executive setting an equitable funding limit per lawmaker. The executive has the final say on fund releases and implementation.

For this reform, we should be careful what we wish for: it vests even more powers on the president. Safeguards will have to be built in to provide the necessary checks and balances.

Executive and legislative leaders have already announced another reform measure, still waiting to be implemented: lawmakers can no longer seek funding for consumables. These include not only medical kits, for example, but also road repairs – those piecemeal projects that have made our road network look like a horrid patchwork quilt that disintegrates in the first downpour.

President Aquino can require all agencies to set up an official website where the year’s spending program is posted along with actual procurements and status of project implementation. We don’t need a ZTE broadband network for this. Certain information involving national defense, law enforcement and diplomacy can remain classified; I think Filipinos will understand.

Lastly, there ought to be a law, or rule, that requires the enactment on time of the GAA.

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The other day, P-Noy explained a practice that has been around for a long time, which opens opportunities for discretionary use of “general savings” by Malacañang. This practice is the failure of Congress to pass the GAA at the end of the year, which is also the end of our fiscal year. When Jan. 1 rolls around, the previous year’s GAA is automatically re-enacted.

Presented in that way, it doesn’t sound too bad – a failure that the public shrugs off as congressional laziness, incompetence, too much horse trading, or all of the above.

With no new menu of projects or programs to be funded for the year, however, there are huge amounts of “savings” that can be impounded by Malacañang and realigned. Lawmakers keep their mouths shut if Malacañang shares the windfall.

P-Noy said the GAA was re-enacted in eight of the nine years under his predecessor. No GAA has been re-enacted under his watch.

Because the subject is rather complicated, however, the impression that lingered was that P-Noy was again drawing flak away from his administration by redirecting it to his predecessor.

One final reform: if we want our politicians to change, we should also stop expecting dole-outs from them courtesy of Juan de la Cruz.

Pinoys have come to expect “contributions” from their congressman, governor, mayor and even barangay captain. As I have written, politicians set aside funds for KBL – kasal, binyag, libing, or weddings, baptisms and funerals – and everything else such as medical aid for their constituents. Where do you think those KBL funds come from? Certainly not from politicians’ personal take-home pay.

Even religious shepherds accept “contributions” from politicians including notorious jueteng lords.

Something good should come out of these scandals. We’re all in this mess together. If we want change, we all have to do our part.