Reaction Paper - Pork Barrel

INSTITUTE OF GRADUATE STUDIES AND RESEARCH Manuel S. Enverga University Foundation AN AUTONOMOUS UNIVERSITY Lucena City ______________________________________________________________________________ Andrew Fernan S. Marquez Master in Management – Engineering Management September 28, 2013 Reaction Paper: The pork barrel scam: A perfect model of corruption Pork barrel politics have existed as long as the government. Throughout history, the people who create laws often try to fund unnecessary projects to keep their constituents happy. Lawmakers are notorious for slipping favored projects into various spending bills. Often a particular project is inserted into a spending bill in the dead of night, bypassing normal budget authorizing procedures. This way lawmakers can divert government funds into their districts, increasing their own chances to win future reelection campaigns. Favored projects can be anything that creates economic opportunity in a lawmaker's district. Often pork barrel projects are construction projects, research projects, or matters of social spending. The article “The pork barrel scam a perfect model of corruption”, by Sara Soliven De Guzman (The Philippine Star) discuss the issues on Pork barrel, how it all started, who are involved in the act and how to end this type of corruption or at least to lessen it. De Guzman believes that no one will be held accountable to this criminal act as every politicians and lawmakers are already washing their hands about the issue. Those involved are not even hard on Janet-Lim Napoles (the mother of all scam) for she might speak out and turn against them. So instead of pointing fingers and washing hands, the author stands for the abolition of the PDAF to these lawmakers and believes that these people should just focus on legislative works. De Guzman clearly believes that this case is a perfect model for a perfect crime. It is a corruption and malversation of government funds that have been studied, processed, approved, released and shared that will leave no traces for the people who participated in the scam. Money that are supposedly for the benefits of the whole nation but are being use for personal interest. More school buildings would have been constructed right now if the money were used for its purpose. Longer stretches of farm-to-market roads would have been paved if the official allocated their funds correctly. Things that would have helped our country crawled up in the deep quicksand of poverty. What stood out to me most about this topic was the 60% cut for each senators or congressman in their PDAF or the Priority Development Assistance Fund. I think that these people are more ruthless than snatchers in Quiapo or holdapers in Divisoria. That’s a whopping P70 million for Congressman and P200 millions for a senator. In my opinion, these act is inhuman, and people involve in this act should be punished severely by the law.

INSTITUTE OF GRADUATE STUDIES AND RESEARCH Manuel S. Enverga University Foundation AN AUTONOMOUS UNIVERSITY Lucena City ______________________________________________________________________________ I strongly believe there is a need for a total washout of politicians and people of the Philippines should elect a well-screened pool of candidate to replace these corrupt officials. De Guzman pointed out that there are deficiencies in the government particularly to the agency involve in the released of government funds down to the implementing agency. De Guzman emphasized that there should have been a strictly defined and limited by a shortlist of qualified projects, tested by the requirement of utility and relevance, proper procurement and bidding process, and reviewed by the accountable implementing agencies. She also added that for transparency and accountability of a project, there should be a publication in a congressional and senatorial website of all the projects and programs identified by house members with the status and accomplishment for the public to see. Finally, De Guzman believes that it is necessary to abolish the pork unless we change the political patronage and general perception that politics is a lucrative business. This can even spared the 60% cut of each legislators in their PDAF. She also believes that legislators should just focus on making laws and enactment of these laws. Only then, we can truly see who will run for congress not for the pork but for the greater interest of public service.