SENATOR Franklin Drilon offers to abolish the pork barrel or the Countrywide Development Fund (CDF). This is the Senate leader’s reaction to call by some civic groups to erase the CDF from the national budget. All these calls to abolish the CDF could not be more myopic and symptomatic of the country’s immature politics. That is likened to a move to burn the house because some of the occupants are very sick. It is like asking to abolish the government because some people in the government are incorrigible thieves and therefore very sick. There is nothing wrong with the CDF. But everything is wrong in most people involved in the CDF. The system is not rotten. But some people in the system are. Even if the CDF system is abolished, the robbing and thievery in the government will not stop. Why? It is because some enter the government service to rob the people. These some get to Malacañang, the Senate, the Lower House, the cabinet, the executive agencies, the LGUs. These some get to be solons, directors, fiscals, judges, policemen, and even traffic enforcers and our barangay tanods. Dysfunctional Government We have a dysfunctional government. It is dysfunctional in the sense that it has failed miserably on serving the interest of the people. It is though efficiently functional in robbing billions of pesos from the treasury. This robbery has made some very rich, in fact filthy rich. Do you think Drilon is serious in giving up the pork? OpinYon does not think so. This Drilon offer goes against nature of the typical politician in the country. Besides, the pork barrel is not bad. It is one system that is intended to allow government to be directly responsive to the needs of the people. This was given to the solons because they are at the frontline of government service. Pork barrel is money. Being money, that is the problem. It starts to become a problem when we have the wrong people handling the money in government. This is a people problem not a system problem. The weakness is not in the system but in the people running the system. The system does not rob. The system is the framework of good governance. It is the people in the system which does the robbing. We suggest, keep the pork barrel system. Abolish those stealing their pork barrel. Impeach them. Napoles is a ‘Victim’ The P10-billion pork barrel thievery has made a celebrity of sorts to one Janet Lim-Napoles. She has been accused of masterminding the robbery. The robbery has taken the headlines in the national media for over a week now. Napoles is today’s darling of the press. She is one darling, though, who prefers to be seen through her lawyers. If the charges and accusations against her are true, Napoles could easily qualify as poster woman for impunity. Think, she has been accused and investigated for other crimes related to corruption in the government. Always she ends up as victim and not behind bars. The way this P10Billion pork barrel scam is being told to the public, Napoles is not the alleged big thief here. She is just being used by thieves in the government. It appears like she is simply the cleaner. She is the laundry woman who cleans the alleged loot. With proper semantics and exercise of creativity by her lawyers, Napoles can even end up as a victim in this case. Again? Look at the numbers, the solon gets a high of 80 percent and a low of 60 percent from the total clean up operations. When you apply this to P10 billion, it means P8 billion was stolen by the solons. And according to sources, P10 billion is not near the half of the total cash involved. The cleanup operation is not a work of genius. It is a product of utmost audacity not mindful of crime being committed. It is a product of cleaner-operator’s criminal mind, so sick he/she thinks he/she controls the government. The clean-up operation is not a product of hard work. It is a product of knowing who can be bought to perfect the crime. It is a product of being identified by solons as willing to risk his/her neck to clean up a large-scale robbery. Is there Politics Here? The opposition is complaining and shouting. They are angry because only those fighting Malacañang and the President are in the list. United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) accuses Malacañang of taking moves of demolish the opposition. “This is political” the solons in the list say. The nearest to this scandal being political is every politician wants to bury this and hidden from the public eye. To some in media, they say, this is one scandal that may bring down the administration of PNoy. Malacañang wants this scandal hidden from the public and buried. The move by one top official backfired as it did not sit well with the young investigators at the NBI. Inside story says, one trusted top Malacanang official called the NBI to slow down on the investigation after Napoles complained of blackmail. She accused her confidante and a relative, Benhur Luy, of asking P300Million. Napoles wrote the President asking for his assistance in this case. The NBI people were deeply disappointed at the order from Malacañang. They thought their investigation on the kidnapping that led to the discovery of the P10Billion scam will be wasted. The NBI agents gathered the witnesses and brought them to the Philippine Daily Inquirer (PDI). They did right in thinking if justice will not be served in the bureaucracy, maybe justice will get grinding through media. And the Inquirer was the perfect venue to reach the people. The country’s undisputed leader in mass media, the PDI, picked it up and is doing an excellent job in fearlessly championing the cause of exposing corruption in government. Given PDI focus on the scandal, everybody now knows what has happened to billions of government funds, including the pork barrel. (The PDI reporting on the scandal, though, is not without risks. The editor on top of its research team got the most terrifying warning. His house was ransacked by robbers but nothing was taken, even his laptop was spared. It was an obvious message on his vulnerability. The NBI has offered security to some PDI editors). UNA’s Fears Have Reasons In the list of those involved in the scandal are known oppositionists. This has raised questions. If Napoles had only the opposition in his bag of tricks, why would she have the guts to claim she controls the government. This brag was reported in the papers. It was reported she bragged and have told parties to slow down on the investigation because she controls the government. Definitely, the opposition was not what Napoles had in mind when she issued the warning. She must have thought of the people in control of the government that she controls with her money and information. She must have the people in Malacañang in mind when she said so. The robbery getting public attention is high risk to the administration. If Malacanang wanted to kill the story, then UNA is wrong in suspecting Malacanang is on the demolition path. Malacañang is said to be very frightened for Napoles operations allegedly covered more than a decade, including that time when PNoy was senator. Many suspect, though, that there will be no full blown investigation. What we see now in media will finally just be political circus. The public attention on the lost billions will soon wane and diminish, then Napoles will be back in business. This will be a repeat of the fertilizer scam where Napoles got implicated and investigated. I sees a conclusion where Napoles end up a victim. Again? The solons are clean. And God stole over P10Billion in government funds. Impunity! God forbid!
Posted on: Tue, 30 Jul 2013 10:10:58 +0000
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