Manila Standard Today #Plumbline of the week: "The conversion of pork" By Pastor Apollo C. Quiboloy Almost 30 years after the country’s biggest funeral procession for a fallen hero passed by Luneta, Filipinos will mass up there today to call for the burial of a practice that in all aspects betrays his martyrdom. They will assemble on the very same hallowed field where another great Filipino gave his full measure of devotion to his country more than a hundred years ago. They will gather there in session to pass one law which their representatives have failed to consider, and that is the repeal of the pork barrel system. History will remember today’s gathering as the most attended congress of the people, participated in by those who have momentarily withdrawn the mandate they have given their representatives so they can directly enact an edict that will end the abuse in the spending of taxes forcibly exacted from them. The rulers of this country have only one option on how to treat the output of the Congress of Luneta: treat is as a sovereign command. One which cannot be vetoed and one which is immediately executory. * * * Actually, the parliament of the people will not converge in the old Bagumbayan alone. In many parks and plazas all over the archipelago, they will assemble on the most propitious of days, the National Heroes’ Day, to, like Bonifacio in 1896, rip to pieces whatever flimsy arguments are there left in support of pork barrel. Hopefully, these mini Batasans will not just perform exorcism rituals for pork, or hold necrological services for its demise. I pray that today’s rallies will also discuss how to transform the pork barrel budget from a tool of graft into an instrument of good. No doubt about it, the people’s burning anger will melt the pork barrel. The challenge now is how to forge a new spending template that will benefit us all. If politicos are adept in beating plows into pork barrel, then we must be good too in hammering the now-smeltered barrel into roofs over schools, the beds in our crowded hospitals, and , yes, even tractor blades for our farmers. Otherwise, the national catharsis which energizes us in demanding accountability from our rulers will be all for naught if we are just good in destroying the old but fail miserably in building the new. * * * That is why my proposal is for this national conversation on pork to mature into a national discussion on how to convert pork. This can start today in the Congress of the Luneta, by serving as a budget hearing on the needs of the people. The various town parliaments that will assemble today should not just vent their ire on pork, or place it on the funeral pyre, but should also serve as some sort of a localized committee on appropriations hearing that will listen to the gripes of the people on needs not met and public welfare ignored. If you think that your local hospital has no medicine, then shout it out today. If mango tree is your classroom, then write in on the placard you will wave. If your tortuous daily commute involves being squeezed into a train or shaken over a pockmarked road, then post it on Facebook with the caption that these are where the pork must go. Let today’s rallies be a crowdsourcing exercise of what we need. I am stressing this because I believe that we must now be looking at a post-pork scenario. And we cannot let the same old system which has failed us in the past adopt a business-as-usual stance days after the noise of today’s rallies have become faint echoes. * * * My point is that budgeting is a job too important to be left to politicians alone. In the crafting of the 2014 budget, those who pay must have a say. It’s time for the people to reclaim their power over the purse and cut the strings that connect it to the pockets of politicians. The real bottom-up-budgeting is that those below are heard and listened to. Some would say, however, that it will be too messy not to mention unwieldy to let 92 million people be co-authors of the national budget. But in this age of the electronic republic and a wi-fi nation, it will be easy to canvass the needs of the many. Feedback must come from their representatives alone. For congressmen, it should begin by allowing the people, through barangay meetings for example, have a greater say on how their district’s share be fairly distributed to all. The time of discretionary spending by officials who ration out funds by doing back-of-napkin jottings is over. * * * But as we craft a new budget regime, we should be vigilant against unfeasible proposals by the usual loudmouths. I believe, for example, that the amounts alleged as presidential pork are overstated. Some quarters have also gone overboard in making demands like the itemization of the Calamity Fund when it is impossible to predict the number of typhoons that will wreak havoc next year. We can only itemize the Calamity Fund if we can predict when earthquakes can strike. There is one lawmaker who went to town that funds for death and retirement benefits be itemized too. My friend in DBM Davao said it can only be done if we have a crystal ball that will tell us how many government workers will die next year. We should be wary of the possibility of budgeting becoming an executive monopoly. Let us make sure that the new must be better than the old. We can’t have new pig with a different collar. Or the piggery merely migrating from one branch to another. manilastandardtoday/2013/08/26/the-conversion-of-pork/ More Info: kingdomofjesuschrist.org smni sonshinetvradyo sonshineradio pinasglobal facebook/PINASNewspaper youtube/user/sonshinemedia/featured facebook/PastorACQ facebook/ApolloQuiboloy facebook/KingdomNation facebook/SonshineMedia facebook/Tamayong facebook/SMNI.Powerline facebook/Sounds.of.Worship facebook/SMNI.GiveUsThisDay
Posted on: Sun, 25 Aug 2013 19:51:36 +0000
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