“Vigilance has its rewards. Mainstream media, civil society, creatives, and even TikTokers did their part. The power of the Word.”
I posted that on Facebook along with the screenshot of the Inquirer’s front page with the banner story headline: “OVP, DepEd, 3 other offices lose P1.2B in secret funds,” (10/11/2023).
The lead sentence of Julie M. Aurelio’s news report: “Vice President Sara Duterte will lose P650 million in confidential funds after a four-member panel of lawmakers decided to strip five government agencies of their allocation in the proposed national budget for next year … Duterte, who is concurrent education secretary, stood to forgo the most as the Office of the Vice President has sought P500 million in confidential funds while the Department of Education had asked for P150 million.” Strip is the word!
Much has been said about these so-called “confi” funds, both past (why didn’t we react vehemently then!) and next year’s if approved, baffling in their enormity, that ordinary Filipinos who are reeling from the economic crunch and should have their eyes set only on their next day’s budget have become conversant with confi as if it were part of the next day’s menu. Confi has become part of the new Filipino lexicon that includes “unli” which is short for “unlimited.” Bottomless, if it is a drink. Alas, with the price of rice still going skyward, “unli rice” in eateries is no longer a come-on, an “entitlement.”
Speaking of entitlement and entitled, the words have also acquired added meaning in the context of those who hold power, aka elected public servants, some of whom seem to take it for granted that they are entitled to the public coffers as if these were cookie jars with their names on them, that once the people have paid their taxes, these taxpayers have no business knowing where their taxes went. And so, like the “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” they think it is always open season as what happened in the multibillion pork barrel scam that the Inquirer detonated and exploded in our faces some years ago. “Plunder” was the word and it rhymes with thunder, the sound of prison gates closing. No mercy!
Simply put, entitlement means having a right to something deserved, worked for, by inheritance, or as stated in a contract. But in psychology, having a sense of entitlement especially among children means they demand things and expect their parents to succumb to their whims, or else. They are brats in the making if they are not already. That sense of entitlement, if not nipped in the bud, could be carried into adulthood, so pity the people around these egregious human beings. Power, wealth, and fame could bloat this sense of entitlement. These overaged brats do not know the meaning of the word that begins with the unsilent letter H, humility. It manifests in subtle ways or in obnoxious behavior that bursts in “Do you know who I am?” The security guards be damned. Or anybody in the way in the hallway.
Here’s something for a little laugh. The words “confident” and “confidential” have also taken on new snide meanings, as in a young boy asking his father for the difference between confident and confidential. Father: “Son, I am very confident that you are my son. As to confidential, well, see that playmate of yours across the street? He is also my son, but that is confidential.” This is followed by a laughing emoji.
Here’s a corrupt government official’s version: Confident: “I am confident that the money comes from your taxes.” Confidential: “Wala kayong paki (It is none of your business) how and where I will spend it.” The jokes can go on and on. What’s yours? There, too, are many versions of how to protest with aplomb like a politician when questioned publicly by turning the tables around with a threat and an accusation that the questioner is an enemy of the state. If you do not know what I am getting at, you have been at sea for a long time or in a much-needed spiritual retreat, bless you. As helpless Filipinos are wont to say, if you can’t beat them, ridicule them, and click that “mwahaha” emoji.
Seriously, when we weren’t looking, how were confi funds spent in the past? Suddenly not a few people are speculating. For troll farms? For social media enablers, desensitizers, deodorizers, gaslighters, bashers, hecklers? Ghost employees, consultants, masseuses, coteries of “undersecretaries,” aides, and security personnel? For the election campaign?
The possibilities are endless and unmentionable. My heart bleeds when I think of former vice president Leni Robredo, much maligned by the misogynist former president Rodrigo Duterte because she was up to the job. She had a close to zero budget, and yet one could say that she outdid all past vice presidents in performance. Her compassion and energy resonated with the young. Our loss.
Despite the likelihood of confi funds not getting allocated to the agencies and departments concerned, civil society groups and individuals are preparing a statement against “misuse and abuse of confidential funds”—their unaudited unli use especially—that could make their way into the 2024 national budget. It should be out soon, a statement for all time.
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