For most
everyone among our citizenry pork barrel may not have meant anything, neither
has it caught any attention. It is because we have a system of governance
whereby everything that transpires within the offices, chambers and halls
of government is done high up in the clouds above the masses of its
constituents, apart from the knowledge and understanding of the ordinary people
on the ground.
In the first place, the name pork
barrel is beyond
comprehension of the common tao. It is clothed in a kind of figurative
phrase that doubly escapes understanding by the ordinary people.
Secondly, pork barrel is not an original Filipino
concept. It is, like all other things in our political and cultural
reality, copied from the West!– from the American political system! And like all other things copied
from the Americans, it is very elitist!
As an
elitist stratagem, it aims to pamper a class of people in society. It
proceeds from a desire to consolidate support for the Chief Executive’s
legislative agenda in Congress. It gratifies the whimsical
interests of both the grantor and the grantee.
For the legislators, their foremost
preoccupation is how to
strategize ways by which the money can be utilized for winning in the
next elections.
The term pork barrel smacks of derogatory
connotations. And across the years, the fund has changed clothes, naming
it euphemistically with deceitful phrase that is purportedly for the
delivery of projects, programs and services for the legislators’
respective constituents. But it fails to mask its primary purpose
as a tool for perpetuating themselves in office. And so, the legislators,
as much as possible, think up of very creative ways that it appears to have
been be used for worthy projects, that it goes to what it has been
avowedly intended for!
But our “honorable” ladies and gentlemen
in Congress also nurture the desire to be able to take a sizable “share” of the
funds strictly for personal gain – something
that allows for personal aggrandizement.
And this is
where the scam begins. In essence, the pork barrel system is an open door to graft
and corruption.
We love to copy, or rather adopt, what the Americans do. But
we always fail to realize our dissimilarity with the American in sensibilities
and in temperament. Our culture is a culture of a poor third world
country. We ought not adopt a legislative system like that
of the Americans. We should not have used English in the legislative hall
whereby what they deliberate on and what the output of their deliberations come
to is incomprehensible to the vast majority. The pretensions of
“transparency” become some kind of a “joke”.
We ought not necessarily adopt an
electoral system like that of the Americans, whereby only the moneyed and the
established political families can be elected as legislators. Behold, the
same family names are invariably there in the political arena — Roxas, Osmena,
Recto, Macapagal, Marcos, Enrile, Magsaysay, Aquino, Estrada, etcetera!
WE ought to eradicate once and for all this pork barrel system!
This is a perversion! Inherently immoral! Obnoxiously elitist!
Detestably discriminatory! Disgustingly undemocratic and unFilipino!
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