Leap frogging infection

Doctors dub it “metastasis”. That’s when a disease leapfrogs from one part of the body to another. The Commission on Audit has documented persisting “metastasis” of the pork barrel Mid-July, Benhur Luy blew the whistle on P10-billion pork cornered by Janet Lim-Napoles of JLN Corporation, thru 20 bogus non-government organizations. Senators Ramon ‘Bong’ Revilla, Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada, Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Gringo Honasan, plus 23 congressmen, delivered the shekels.

COA sifted through pork chits from 2007 to 2009, Chair Maria Grace Pulido-Tan revealed. It found 98 lawmakers from the administration and the opposition, who shoveled P2.19 billion in pork through 15 bogus NGOs. That’s “metastasis”.

Sen. Manuel “Lito” Lapid burned P20 million of pork in 2011 for “anti-dengue innoculants” for Polillio Teresa, Baras, and Pililla. These towns had no dengue fever case. Friday, pork scam whistleblower Merlin Sunas tagged the agriculture department’s gatekeeper for NGOs as part “a conduit of a web of fake NGOs controlled by JLN.

“Greed is a tree that grows even on arid soil.” Were eight congressmen, who ladled tax money into Kaupdanan para sa Mangagawa Foundation, conned? Two-figure donors include: : Masbate –Scott Davies Lanete (P30 million), Lanao del Sur — Mohammed Hussein Pangandaman (P15 million), An Waray –Neil Benedict Montejo (P14.2 million), Davao City — Isidro Ungab (P13 million). Or, were they happy to be fleeced?

“Even if only half of the allegations (are) true, Napoles qualifies as the country’s foremost expert on corruption,” Inquirer’s Randy David wrote.. “Should she land in prison, and need a benign intellectual pursuit… I recommend she write a participant-observer account of the social system of corruption”.

“If we allow the process of earmarking, pork barrel spending, to go forward, it will be an eternal scramble among members, who can get the most money wasted in their state, “ Thomas Jefferson warned . “And they will always get most who are the meanest.”

The tag “pork barrel” bobbed up in the 19th century. Households then stored a barrel of salted pork. “I hold a family to be in a desperate way, when the mother can see the bottom of the pork barrel,” James Fenimore Cooper wrote in his 1845 novel “The Chainbearer”, The term became derogatory by 1873, the Oxford English Dictionary notes.

Filipinos do not have a monopoly of this abuse. Poles speak of ”kelbasa wyborcza”. That translates into “election sausage”. Finns say “siltarum pupolitiikka or “culvert politics”. It pinpoints politicians who construct culverts and projects to curry favor with voters. Danes call poll pork as “valgflæsk”.

During the 2008 US presidential campaign, the Gravina Island Bridge in Alaska was slammed as the “Bridge to Nowhere”. Republican Senator Ted Stevens’ pork barrel underwrote the projected $398 million bridge to serve the island’s 50 residents.

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines called for scrapping the pork barrel as institutionalized sleaze. That resonated with the 1984 counsel, by former Supreme justice Cecilia Muñoz-Palma, against accepting P2 million in pork. She had, by then, been elected Quezon City assemblywoman. Tiene cojones ( “She has balls”) was the irreverent but heartfelt accolade paid to this lady.

Senators Grace Poe Llamanzares, Bam Aquino and Antonio Trillanes agree that pork should be scrapped. Indeed, the pork barrel costs are much greater than its benefits. Inquirer’s Solita Monsod wrote, “Yet, it flourishes. Why?”

“Simply because those who benefit are the ones who decide whether the system should continue or not. At least P21 billion a year of taxpayers’ money is squandered through pork. The “servants” of the people screw their bosses with impunity….Not all legislators are involved. True. But they haven’t done a thing about it either. “

“Ang tawo nga mahakug, wala pagkabusog” (A greedy person is never satisfied), a Visayan proverb says. Most strident in the squeals of protest are 29 congressmen who’ve banded into the “Visayan bloc”.

“Our districts and constituents have benefited from (pork barrel),” says Iloilo Rep. Jerry Treñas. He said pork is used for scholarships, hospitalization and infrastructure projects.

Non-Visayan members are Cesar Sarmiento of Catanduanes, Sonny Collantes of Batangas and Pedro Acharon of South Cotabato . The bloc’s viewpoint is shared by many legislators who fret their names could well surface in scam reports yet to come.

Senators in the pork mess, meanwhile, dismissed out-of-hand Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago’s suggestion: Take a leave of absence pending formal investigation . Delicadeza, alas, is the first victim when corruption metastasizes.

Since then, Senator Santiago has bounced back. She filed a resolution for phased scrapping of pork. She suggests slashing senators’ pork from P200 million to P100 million in 2014. That’ a drop to P50 million in 2015, then zero in 2016. Chop congressmen’s pork by half —-from P70 million to P35 million; P15 million in 2015 and nil in 2016.

Plug, meanwhile, those loopholes that allow legislators to slurp pork. How? Release them for “hard projects” and directly to national government agencies. Cut out NGOs.. “This strict rule should be non-negotiable” In the past, local chief executives — often spouses or other kin of legislators — squandered pork. Bar LGUs too.

That’d be the day when metastasis of a corrupt institution would recede. “Turn off the pork barrel spigot,” former President Bill Clintono urged, “and deliver for our children’s future.”