A Rally

Quote of the day: A peanut vendor strolling around Rizal Park was selling his nuts with an apt slogan, " Mani...Mani...Mani ng pagbabago."

This morning I was in my first rally after a very long time. The crowd was noticeably smaller than I imagined it to be. If you were part of the media, you wouldn't be impressed. I guess not that many people would want to wake up early on a holiday to walk under the sweltering heat of the sun.

Anyway, I'd just like to share some thoughts about the PR coup the president's team concocted last week. Last Friday, the president rang the headlines by allegedly saying it's time to abolish the pork barrel. However, the fine print merely explained that he's introducing another variant of the same system, this time with more checks in place. Many rejoiced prematurely because of the news. But some were also skeptical at this last-minute ploy to quell the Million People March the following week.

For the record, it's about time that lawmakers do what lawmakers do: legislate instead of proposing funding for projects via the pork. The same goes for the president. Despite being the executive head of government, the president should be stripped off the pork. He should also be accountable for the funds that his office uses.

To cap this post, here's the full text of ADDU President Fr. Joel Tabora's speech this morning (Got this from his blog):

First, today: We want the TRUTH. We deserve nothing but the absolute truth from our leaders in government. How are public funds are being spent? Napoles has brought the “decaying rat” from the stinking closet into the open. She has exposed the dishonor in the pomp and ritual of the “honorables”. She has shamelessly used the deprivation and suffering of the poor to enriching herself and her “honorable” solons and senators through ghost NGOs and ghost projects fed by their double-dead “pork.” The extent of her corruption is staggering, going into billions of pesos. Large as this is, we are now made to understand that the Napoles scams that involve 23 congressmen and 5 senators account only for a small fraction of the total amount of pork mishandled and abused. In the name of all Filipinos who – whether they like it or not – pay taxes, pay excise taxes, pay VAT, documentary stamp taxes, and income taxes, in the name of all the hard working Filipinos who labor with their bodies in factories and offices or labor at their professions, whose meager salaries are withheld each and every payday, today: we want the truth! We want to know who have benefitted, who have received the cuts, who are responsible for the corruption, how it all came about. We want to know if it can be cured. If not, the consequence it clear: the PDAF – the pork barrel must go.

The President has said the PDAF must go. That’s not what he was saying when the stinking rat was first brought out of the closet. Now that millions of Filipinos are showing outrage for the extent of the scam, he has changed his tune. The PDAF must go in its present form, but a new PDAF will arise that will be better protected against misuse and more transparent. But the People are wary. Pouring perfume on a stinking rat does not eliminate the rot. It is not the sweet perfume that wins, but the stench.

The cure seems to be to do away altogether with unbudgeted, discretionary, uncontrolled, inauditable spending, to insist that the legislator legislate, and the people in the executive implement laws. If so, then the President himself is not exempt from our demand. His Special Purpose Funds amount to P449.95 Billion constituting about a fifth of the entire P2.268 T proposed 2014. If news reports are to be believed, the DBM has failed to submit a report on how Malacanang spent its special purpose funds. Mr. President, this makes us, your BOSS, very uneasy. Mr. President, we ask you to report on how you have used you Special Purpose Funds. We admired you for your “daang matuwid” programs. But Napoles has pulled the stinking rat out of the closet. When no reports on public spending have been given, we begin to smell the rot of corruption, even where we thought we walked together on the straight and narrow.

We call for accountability and justice. We call for an independent, impartial, credible and competent body to investigate how the PDAF and other sources of funds for public use have been used or abused by our public officers. We demand nothing less than prosecution to the fullest extent of the law for those individuals who have gravely abused their discretion and violated the People’s trust. 

We want transparency in all government transactions, including public biddings on projects, making sure that the money disbursed actually goes to the intended projects or beneficiaries. Short of a legislated Freedom of Information Law, we demand that measures be adopted now, to afford each and every Filipino the right to “audit” how government funds are being spent.

We demand change. Not just perfume on the stinking rat. Government spending must be based on intelligent foresight, detailed budgetary planning, integrity, transparency, control, and accountability. Otherwise, the stinking rat will nibble away, will gnaw at, if not devour, the deliverables in basic social services, education, classrooms, health care, government hospitals, roads, bridges, and utilities that the people need. It will consume allocations needed to address damage caused by natural disasters and calamities. It will eat away at the basic salaries and benefits of our public school teachers and other government workers. We are tired of this. We are sick of it. We demand change!

We come together today to seize our future free of pork-related corruption. It is our future which we claim “as Boss.” It is our future which we claim as Filipinos and Filipinas. We are not defined by the corruption of Napoles. We are defined by our love for one another, and by our love for our country. We will fight for this future, as we fight for our love. Today, we will not let anyone derail it. Integrity will prevail.