The means crucifies the ends

 PUNCHLINE

Ike Señeres

The Regional Development Council (RDC) of Central Luzon has asked the Congress to allow it to identify projects for its congressional districts, citing the fact that Congressmen are actually also members of the Local Development Councils (LDCs) as provided for in the Local Government Code (LGC) of 1991. They added that Congressmen could also become members of the Regional Advisory Committees (RACs) in accordance with Executive Order No. 325 that created the RDCs.

In a resolution issued during its recent meeting, the Central Luzon RDC said that “The presence of existing alternative structures, mechanisms and processes within existing legal framework can afford congressmen opportunities for speed, efficiency, flexibility and independence in attending to the needs of their constituents and supplement national direction in this respect”.

In sharp contrast, the Cordillera RDC voted to sponsor a resolution condemning the pork barrel system.

For several weeks now, I have been advocating in my columns that the planning and monitoring of the pork barrel funds should be turned over to the LDCs, with my additional suggestion that the money from the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) should be combined with the money from the Internal Revenue Allocations (IRAs), in such as way that more priority projects could be funded in a more coordinated manner.

Although it was not really made clear what they wanted to do, it appears that the Cordillera RDC wants to totally abolish the pork barrel funds, while the Central Luzon RDC wants to keep it, with the additional suggestion that the Congressmen to whom these funds were “given”, would join the rest of the RDC in its planning and monitoring, not only as regular members, but also as members of the RACs.

Listening to the leaders of the organizers of the protest rallies against the pork barrel system, I observed that their main complaint is the lack of an accounting system that would monitor and report to the general public how and why these funds are being used, and also what these funds were used for and where they went.

While I fully agree with their complaint, I would like to add my own suggestion that the monitoring and reporting system should not only include the accounting component, but also the budgeting and the auditing components.

Based on estimates, it appears that the total amounts allocated for the pork barrel funds is only about 1% of the total allocations in the General Appropriations Act (GAA), more or less. That means that the rest of the money, about 99% of it more or less goes to the regular budgets that are funding all of the three branches of the government.

On the part of the judiciary branch, that does not include the Judicial Development Fund (JDF) that is generated from their internal fees.

While it is a good idea to monitor and report what happens to the 1% of the GAA that goes to the pork barrel funds, I think that it is a better idea to also monitor and report what happens to the rest of the 99%, as it goes to all the branches of the government, including all the internally generated fees of each branch, such as the JDF.

Needless to say, the public should also monitor and report what happens to the funds that the legislative branch is appropriating for its own use.

As the process goes, the budget proposals that are presented for inclusion in the GAA are prepared by those that are asking for these funds. In the case of the executive branch, these budget proposals are prepared by the departments, bureaus, agencies and other instrumentalities.

The same goes for the independent commissions that are technically not part of the executive branch. The budget proposals of the military go under the Department of National Defense (DND).

In order to get the complete picture of how the GAA is being used, the general public should know how these budget proposals are being prepared, for what purposes and under what justifications. Needless to say, the general public should also know how the previous year’s budget was used, that being part of the auditing component.

In other words, the entire process of budgeting, accounting and auditing should be part of one complete supply chain that the public should watch.

It is encouraging to note that many people have been scandalized by the anomalies of the recent pork barrel scam. The sad thing however is that some sectors are calling for the complete abolition of the entire pork barrel system, perhaps without realizing that the purpose for the system is theoretically good, and that not all lawmakers are corrupt. The situation now could be compared to a house that has been partly eaten by termites, and the solution of the house owner is to burn down the entire house.

As it usually happens, many people are prone to advocate for the abolition of anything that becomes controversial, without even bothering to think and plan what could possibly replace whatever it is that they would want to abolish. What happens then is that a vacuum is created, and the result is that the means does not justify the end. As we see it now, the call for the abolition of the pork barrel system crucifies the ends, even if the means are meant to be good.

Most of us could recall that when there were problems of ballot snatching during some past elections, the people solved the problem not by abolishing the election process completely, but by guarding the ballot boxes. We could do the same thing now by guarding the pork barrel system, instead of abolishing it completely.

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