Installment plan

Last week, Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago made a modest suggestion: Abolish the congressional pork barrel system in stages. Reduce the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) allocated for each legislator by about half next year, and then halve it again in 2015 and then finally eliminate it altogether in 2016. Abolition on an installment plan: We think the idea may just work.

Senate President Franklin Drilon said he thinks the same way too. “I was for the abolition of PDAF from the very start. The proposal of Miriam appears to be feasible.”

As we understand it, eminent practicality is the guiding principle behind both Santiago’s proposal, as detailed in the Senate resolution she filed on July 31, and Drilon’s ready assent.

In the first place, any tampering with the pork barrel will be met with resistance by many in the Senate and in the House of Representatives—not publicly, perhaps, but certainly in corridors and conference rooms. The two-hundred-odd congressmen representing specific districts, in particular, may find reduction or outright abolition to be difficult to accept, not necessarily because they see the pork barrel as a source of easy money for themselves but because many of their campaign promises assume a PDAF to draw funding from.

In other words, many legislators will plead against reduction or abolition because of their constituency’s specific expectations. “Many voters, rightly or wrongly, expect their congressman to ‘bring home the bacon’ to the district, in the form of capital projects,” Santiago said, acknowledging political reality. “Each congressman could do this by availing [himself] of the pork barrel.”

Gradual abolition might have a higher chance of working, then, simply as a matter of political arithmetic: There might be less resistance, if enough congressmen are given time to make good on specific campaign promises.

Secondly, the nature of Santiago’s proposal—a resolution, rather than a proposed law—makes it more politically palatable. If the resolution is carried in the Senate, and matched by similar action in the House, then the task of both chambers of Congress is simplified. “You just lower the budget for PDAF under the General Appropriations Act,” Drilon explained, in a mix of Filipino and English.

Santiago has recommended lowering a senator’s PDAF from the current P200 million to P100 million in 2014, to P50 million in 2015 and to zero in 2016. Her recommendation for a representative’s pork barrel allocation follows the same pattern: from the current P70 million to P35 million in 2014, to P15 million in 2015 and finally down to zero in 2016.

Thirdly, the schedule-in-stages recognizes something essential: To completely abolish Congress’ pork barrel, the political culture itself needs changing. That kind of change requires time to take effect. “This is why the second best solution is to gradually phase out the PDAF. This will give senators and congressmen time to adjust to the new rules,” Santiago said.

Those new rules must reflect the old verities: There is a fundamental distinction between the work of the executive branch and that of the legislative branch of government. Allowing legislators the privilege of “prioritizing” billions of pesos in funds for so-called development assistance muddles that distinction.

There is also another, deeper, fundamental truth. The congressional pork barrel system is an invitation to corruption. Candidates for Congress spend inordinate sums of money, because they know from experience that this kind of investment can be recovered, indeed can even turn profitable, through the pork barrel. From experience, too, many citizens will say that the good example of some lawmakers, who use their PDAF allocations with the public interest truly in mind, is the exception rather than the rule.

Giving the lawmakers three years to say goodbye to a decades-old practice, then, seems only reasonable.

None of this is going to work, however, unless there is a concerted public campaign to support the abolition of the congressional pork barrel system. Sociologist Randy David made an excellent point in his column on the pork barrel yesterday: We must grow our “ability to imagine our society as a collective work in progress.” Putting constant pressure on the political class—that is something citizens outraged by pork barrel corruption must do, if the barrel is to be finally emptied.