Response to David challenge
This letter responds to the challenge posed by Randy David in his Sept. 15 column titled “Regaining the people’s trust.” I was a member of the Cory Senate, 1987-1992. I availed myself of the CDF or Countrywide Development Fund, the forerunner of the PDAF (Priority Assistance Development Fund).
David suggests that “lawmakers who have availed themselves of the pork barrel, but used their allotments honestly, can do something positive for the nation by voluntarily offering detailed reports on how they used their PDAF for every year they were in office. . . They can take out newspaper space or post these reports in their websites or Facebook accounts.” He also says, “as Peter Wallace has passionately argued in his column, that everyone who has served as a legislator in this country in the past 10 years is probably guilty unless proven innocent.”
The accusations on senatorial wrongdoing could not be directed at me for my last year of service in the Senate was 1992, 21 years ago (not 10), but I might be thought to have been a pork barrel beneficiary. There are at least four pages I can report detailing how my CDF allocations were spent. They might not fit in a Facebook account, or might occupy too much newspaper space, an expensive medium.
The Cory Senate was my first and, thankfully, only elective post. My campaign for the post relied on volunteers. The party, very concerned I would not be elected, chose me to receive special mention from the President in my radio ads—that she needed me in the Senate. Luckily, I won 18th place in the Senate roster.
I promised the Paterno volunteers they would be kept informed of my Senate activities. My staff wrote a newsletter each quarter, reporting my activities, and the current concerns of my Senate committees. Campaign volunteers were interested to know how their candidate was performing, and we would receive occasional comments. They were flesh and blood recipients, not an amorphous silent electorate, of my newsletter; their interest kept it going. The newsletters were mailed postage-free to registered volunteers. Providentially, my home files still retain at least one copy of every newsletter issue.
My newsletter files reported the “Allocation of the Countrywide Development Fund” we received for 1988-89, for 1990 and for 1991. The lists of projects funded out of each allocation were published in Adhika vol. 3-2, vol. 4-4 and vol. 1-5. The totals received at each allocation were P10.45 million, P10 million and P13.8 million. The amounts of each allocation were published in a newsletter only after each project funded from that allocation had been visited and verified by a member of my Senate staff.
The description and expenditure for every project funded from each allocation will be published in the 7-Eleven website.
Availability of the quarterly newsletters will allow us to answer in good faith questions from website readers on my acts as senator, and on important matters relevant to my conduct in that post, e.g., position on extension of US bases, voting on important issues such as land reform, etc., and laws authored. My major post in that Senate was as chair of the committee on economic affairs.
—VICENTE T. PATERNO,
