There are in fact two monumental evils in our system of government: the pork barrel fund and the political dynasty. The imminent abolition of the one practically signals the beginning of the end of the other. Let me elaborate.
Suppose that, to date, your family has been cornering the major elective city, municipal and provincial posts in your locality. Would you still proceed, given recent developments, with your consuming dream to become a congressman, or a senator, come the 2016 elections? You should certainly be downright stupid if you would! For how could you possibly recover, obviously during your initial term, the huge expenses you would have surely incurred in getting elected? Would you be able to continue stealing taxpayers’ money throughout your succeeding incumbencies as a lawmaker? I truly regret saying that, but such has simply been the plain, incorrigible political reality in these parts since time immemorial. As a matter of fact, given the now nationwide public denunciation of the recently uncovered multibillion-peso pork barrel scam, alongside the minimal salary of lawmakers, our first-termer congressmen and senators must now be in deep remorse (read: “sising-alipin”) that they ran last May. Chances are, to regain their lost sense of self-respect and credibility in the eyes of their constituents, they might by now be considering at the very least to endorse and help pass the long clamored-for, yet repeatedly sneezed-at enabling law that would finally give justice to the constitutional prohibition of political dynasty in our midst and times. After all, that precisely should have been the foremost agenda of their counterparts many years ago, not as much to implement public projects, as genuine lawmakers of the land.
Having said the above, who could have foreseen, indeed, that the otherwise extremely abominable pork barrel scam could yet eventually turn out to be a blessing in disguise?
—RUDY L. CORONEL, rudycoronel2004@yahoo.com