"...The deeply-institutionalised thievery that is Philippine-style pork barrel politics has the following key components in its gravy train: The President of the Philippines – who formulates the National Budget and consistently includes the pork barrel as a significant chunk of it year in and year out. Philippine Congress – the state body that, amazingly, approves the National Budget, a big chunk of which involves the very funds that end up in its members’ secret bank accounts. The Philippines’ financial system – a black-box conduit for mob funds that is hopelessly convoluted by archaic secrecy laws, lax and corrupt regulatory bodies, and tight family ties (many with links to the very law enforcement offices currently “investigating” this case) that greases the cogs. Where does Napoles fit in the above? Whatever the answer to that question is does not really matter. She is all but one item in what should be a long list of persons of interest in this case — perhaps one that includes bank executives, NGO managers and sponsors, senators and House representatives, and last but certainly not the least, President Benigno Simeon “BS”. getrealphilippines/blog/2013/08/why-janet-lim-napoles-is-the-perfect-fall-guy-in-the-philippines-p10-bn-pork-barrel-scam/Aquino III himself. The latter is where the buck stops as the old cliche goes. BS Aquino, after all, is the man who submits the National Budget proposal and, as such, is the ultimate originator of the pork barrel allocations to begin with. This is the very same man who back in 2010 prematurely trumpeted his place in history as the country’s unprecedented Corruption Killer. Midway through his term, one can say that President BS Aquino is certainly living up to his two-letter initials.
Posted on: Thu, 15 Aug 2013 17:24:07 +0000