4-province caravan vs pork starts

A PROTESTER in Cebu wears a mask to demonstrated rage against the pork barrel system. TONEE DESPOJO/CEBU DAILY NEWS

ILOILO CITY—Rage against the plunder of billions of pesos of public funds through pork barrel is building up with church groups here leading a four-province protest caravan and indigenous peoples in the Sierra Madre joining the call for pork’s abolition.

The “Caravan for Truth”, led by dioceses of the Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI), seeks to reach out to all churches and denominations through protest programs and discussions in stopovers in the provinces of Iloilo, Antique, Aklan and Capiz, said Fr. Marco Sulayao, vicar general of the Diocese of Iloilo and Visayas governor of the IFI’s National Priest Organization.

“We must continue the discussions and show our protests on this issue because pork barrel is not dead. We are being led to believe so by the administration and legislators who want to retain the discretionary funds under another name and mechanism,” Sulayao said.

Sulayao cited the discretionary funds under the Office of the President, which he said amounts to nearly P1 trillion or almost half of the proposed P2.6-trillion national budget for 2014.

“Putting nearly half of our national budget under the control and discretion of one office or person is clearly immoral,” he said.

The caravan will start here today after a 5:30 a.m. Mass and will proceed to Anini-y town in Antique.

The caravan is expected to proceed to Roxas City in Capiz where a protest program will be held at the Filamer Christian University. After the program, the caravan will proceed to Balasan town in Iloilo for an overnight stopover.

On Saturday, the caravan will pass the northern towns of Iloilo including Estancia and Batad before a noon stopover in Sara town. It will then proceed to Banate town around 3 p.m. and culminate in a program in Iloilo City about 5 p.m.

In the Sierra Madre, the head of the Agta tribe joined protests against pork barrel.

Ramcy Astoveza, chief of the Agta tribe, laid the blame on continuing corruption in government on President Aquino.

“We believe that President Aquino is the one to blame for all these scandals because he is the one who controls the flow of government money,” he said.

He said most tribe members want to personally join protest actions against pork in Manila but they are being prevented from doing so by lack of financial resources.

“Even if we’re not physically present, we’re one with the Filipino people in our common battle against high level corruption in the government,”

Astoveza said.

He said tribe elders are kept abreast on developments on the plunder of public funds through radio reports.

“The series of scam stories are really repulsive. We were shocked when we learned that top government officials played principal roles in robbing the people of their money,” he said.

Astoveza said the tribe has long been calling the attention of Malacañang, Congress and Senate on illegal logging, construction of dams, education of young tribesmen, peace and order and the security of their ancestral domain in the Sierra Madre.

“But all our pleas fell on deaf ears,” he said.

The tribe chieftain said the government failed to stop the destruction of the Sierra Madre mountain range, considered one of the last bastions of lush forests in the country that starts in the north in Cagayan and ends in the south in Quezon.

The northern part of Quezon at the foot of Sierra Madre has long been the haven of illegal loggers despite President Aquino’s total log ban order on February 2011.

“There are lots of pressing problems facing the tribe. But the government has no time to listen to us because most of our officials are busy accumulating their ill-gotten wealth,” he said.