There is something ominous in the air. One reads it in the pages of newspapers, in the social networks, in blogs. It is like distant thunder forewarning of something fast approaching. Good time perhaps to rethink our political positions and beliefs, to read history once again and perhaps make some educated guess as to where we might soon be going.
If there is something to be learned from text on the “Arab Spring”, it is that you can sometimes have too much of a good thing. Like for example, change, toppling a government, and generally shaking things up. It is never an easy thing. Was it Mao Tse Tung who said? “You cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs!”
Tell us Mr. Mao, did the final outcome justify so many broken eggs?
As it is with the issue of the pork barrel scandal. We should ask, how many eggs will be broken in the end for what final outcome? Clearly, this omelet will not be made without many eggs. Consider the names that have come out: Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Mike Arroyo and their corp of undersecretaries, etc. Add this to whoever is already in the omelet, Enrile, Revilla, Estrada; possibly others. Garnish with kibitzers, Miriam Defensor-Santiago, Joker Arroyo. Put in Fidel Ramos. Put in a side dish of those who clearly will be contending for the coming presidential elections and then you have the whole meal. And it will not be coming down easy.
The pork barrel without a doubt needs to go. It needs to be abolished because it contains the very fabric of political corruption in the country. Politicians spend millions to put themselves in office. Obviously, they need to make their money back with interest. Here’s how. How can that be called stealing?
So if we want to have true leaders who deserve their positions, if we want the country to truly progress, the pork barrel must go. It is all very simple. But try convincing a pen full of pigs to vote for a measure that would stop the pig fodder from coming in. And all because of the common good. What are the chances of that happening? But the pigs know there is an outrage and a clamor that must be answered. Who among them will after all say, the hell with the common good? It is ever the true nature of pigs to be secretive of how they truly feel. It is by far safer to say one thing and then do its exact opposite.
Which is why every barrier will now be raised to achieve at least two ends. The first is to keep the pork barrel where it is now. The other is to prevent the setting of a precedent for punishing politicians past, present, and future for crimes related to it.
The ways to do this are historically well established antecedents. Whenever there is ever any true radical change in the offing, one should always expect a disruption, an impeachment perhaps, possibly a coup, or another war in Mindanao. Anything is possible. Still, even with the worst among us one must always be careful not to overstep one’s bounds. One must not ever do what is not necessary. Here, even disruptions must be artfully designed.
The pork barrel story is bigger than what comes out in media. It harks to a sub-cultural construct among those in power in our country. They have a way of doing things a particular way outside the realm of public knowledge. They are an exclusive club. Every one of them knew and have known for a long time how and what the pork barrel truly is and what purposes it serves. It was the avenue of power. It was how the president can get the congress to do anything, as in anything at all. It was every congressman’s money-making machine. It was the business itself.
And now the president might or might not abolish it. Either option will not be easy. Even now, the powers-that-be want to have him swinging in the wind. It is the better option to seeing themselves hanging in the wind. It is him or them.
But even so, this sordid drama is really just a smokescreen to keep from happening an impending narrative that could end with the guilty being punished. The abolition of the bork barrel may still happen. But it all depends on how strong President Benigno Aquino III really is, what secret cards he holds if he has any. He is either a brilliant man who is set to achieve what nobody before him ever achieved or a stupid man who has overstepped his bounds and must now pay the price for doing that.