This week, Congress has voted – for itself – P9.665 billion in pork funds. That is almost a two billion peso increase from last year’s pork allocations, at around P7.9 billion. Which makes for a lot of bollocks, really; today’s Inquirer editorial makes a rather poignant point about how “heartless and callous” this act is, especially at a time of global crisis.
If you say “pork” to someone in Congress, you’ll get a patriotic, impassioned tirade against graft and corruption that would have come from the throat of Raul Manglapus and the diaphragm of Camilo Osias. Yet if you say “Priority Development Assistance Fund,” you’ll get a long-winded explanation of why it’s needed, why it’s necessary, and why the two billion peso increase is justified.
I am sure that a million-peso waiting shed is in order, or that a side street near the school must be renamed (heck, why not the entire school), a scholarship has to be named after one’s self to establish one’s place in history. Everyone in Congress is mandated to give away overpriced relief goods to the “indigent,” as well as have a convenient source of money to perpetuate patronage and power. Everyone in Congress has to have a “pro-poor” program. Every member of the House is entitled to messages of progress in giant lengths of tarpaulin, or the long side-walls of pedestrian overpasses.
That is PDAF, that is the pork barrel. Everything including the squeal.
