THE PRESENT public outrage about the pork barrel scam and the sheer audacity of its abuses has brought into focus a system which is defacto defective in concept and practice.
There have probably been effective and efficient utilization of the funds and legitimate local needs may have been addressed through the specific ground access and knowledge of the legislators.
Still these do not justify the inherent wrong premise, transactional arrangements and feudal values of the process. There are also the procedural lapses of the institutions and people involved who should oversee the integrity of the mechanics.
This responsibility has been neglected by either a hesitance to step on the toes of the powerful legislators and/or an involvement in the benefi ts themselves.
It must also be admitted that everyone has some share of the fault here. We have always known that in the projects of government and the use of government money a certain percentage or SOP usually is allocated as grease or facilitation expenses to go into the pockets of the officials.
This may be as low as 10% or even as high as 30%. We tolerate this as a fact of life. At least we justify to ourselves that the bulk of the funds go to the project. It is just the way of doing business. Then suddenly we wake up one day and a whistle blower named Benjamin Luy accuses his aunt and employer, Janet Napoles, of being brighter than us all, including the taipans and corporate executives.
Without a graduate degree or training from AIM, Ateneo or La Salle, she has allegedly conceptualized and implemented the mother of all scams involving the pork barrel.
She has, in a very short span of time, managed to accumulate billions of pesos and lived and hobnobbed with the rich and famous. She also reputedly has direct access to the highest offi cials in the corridors of political power. She has changed the whole business model. Now 50% goes to the legislator. 40% goes to Napoles.
10% goes to the linked facilitators who are also high government officials and NGO offi cers. And a big fat 0% goes to the project. Luy further named the top legislators in the Senate and the House who were the clients of Napoles.
This explicit exposure by this whistle blower and the sheer audacity and magnitude ignited a wave of outcry and indignation. Demonstrations clamoring for the abolition of the pork barrel fund and the fi ling of charges against the named offi cials began to be held.
Legislators were jeered at, given dirty looks and made to hear insulting stage whispers in public, malls, restaurants and even universities. I was embarrassed when this happened to a friend who is a very decent and honest congressman while we were walking inside the university grounds. He was gracious enough to say that it comes with the job.
This anger is exacerbated by the fact that it had to take a whistle blower to expose Napoles and the legislators.
What were the conduit and involved government departments and the Commission on Audit doing? Now the other employees of Napoles have come out and joined in denouncing her.
It seems that in spite of her gargantuan revenues she paid them low wages, treated them badly and even mistrusted them. Imagine that Luy who directly handled documentation and hundreds of millions in cash was paid only Php 40,000 a month.
Under the present arrangements, senators are allocated Php 200 million and congressmen Php 70 million, which all adds up to around Php 25 billion for the whole Congress. Of course some, due to their other positions in Congress and their closeness to Malacañang, get more.
When some of them pocket these funds substantially or even entirely, it is not because of “hunger” but because of greed or gluttony. In Kapampangan, “ela danupan, matako la!” In Tagalog, “hindi sila gutom, matakaw sila!”
When the public outcry brand these legislators as pigs, draw pig cartoons over their heads and make masks of pigs to depict them, I find it insulting. It is an insult to the pig. Vultures is probably a more accurate brand.
