Flaw calling for PDAF’s abolition also ails PSF
To earn more brownie points and avoid disclosing their real interests, the occupants of Malacañang had no choice but to change lanes and go with the overwhelming public clamor to trash the pork barrel of our legislators.
It was just a matter of time, however, that what has been called the “super pork,” aka the Presidential Social Fund (PSF) which is the pork barrel of President Aquino, would eventually be exposed to public scrutiny as well. While the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) earmarked in the 2013 budget for all lawmakers amounts to a walloping P25.2 billion, it becomes miniscule compared to the President’s pork—more than P1.4 trillion, which is probably why he is so adamant against relinquishing it despite his strong statements to dismantle the PDAF of the senators and congressmen.
Like the pork barrel system, the PSF suffers from the same “flaw of exclusive discretion,” a flaw that has been blamed as the culprit that opened the window for unscrupulous members of both the Senate and the House to connive with alleged pork barrel scam queen Janet Lim-Napoles.
Why would the President need that much money if the agencies of the national government are expected to deliver the services they owe the Filipino people as demanded by of their respective mandates? What do these agencies lack that the President himself needs to fill, such that so humungous an amount should be entrusted to one office or person?
One cannot help but suspect that the reason the P-Noy of “Matuwid na Daan” and “Kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap” does not want to part with and bid goodbye to his super pork is that he himself is neck-deep in corruption, and that the super pork guarantees the way to his enrichment and with it, as one editorial read, “the canine loyalty of his minions in the Liberal Party” who themselves are salivating to partake of his largesse. Moreover, didn’t he, during his long stint as congressman and later as senator, also give from his own “pork” as much as P100 million to four bogus nongovernment organizations, as discovered by Sen. Bongbong Marcos?
Mr. President, please lead the nation by example. Show yourself as someone willing to go through the same moral and ethical restrictions you demand of others in government, particularly considering how unforgiving your hand has been in demanding these from those on the other side of the political fence.
Demonstrate to us that you still have your balls despite your age and all your other inconsistencies which have caused so much divisiveness, economic disparity and criminality in the last three years.
—GUS LIM, [email protected]
