August 26, 2013 · Posted in: 2013 Elections, Access to Information, Civil Society, Congress Watch, Freedom of Information, General, Governance, Image Galleries
Images (and songs)
on the day against Pork
ON NATIONAL Heroes Day, protesters from different sectors and of various advocacies trooped to Rizal Park for a single, common cause: the abolition of the pork barrel.
In true rally fashion, they came bearing banners and posters painted with calls for the scrapping of the Priority Development Assistance Fund or PDAF, that a special audit of the Commission on Audit revealed had been riddled with corruption involving lawmakers, executive agencies, and nongovernment organizations.
The protest tagged as the ‘Million-People March’ took place two days after President Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III supposedly called for the abolition of pork. But what the president actually meant was the revision — yet again — was the supposed abolition of PDAF but not the pork barrel system.
In the 2011 national budget, the first crafted by his administration, Aquino already introduced modifications in the PDAF system. He set a ceiling of pork funds for lawmakers and disallowed insertions in the budgets of line agencies. Transparency measures were also put in place supposedly to ensure the accountable use of PDAF.
But what has not changed since pork’s inception in Philippine politics is that the use of funds essentially remains at the discretion of senators and congressmen. They choose which project to implement, where to carry it out, and who will benefit from it.
The threat of downpour did not dissuade many from staging what is said to be the first and biggest demonstration in the Aquino administration.
Text by Karol Ilagan
Images by Karol Ilagan/Ed Lingao
2 Responses to Images (and songs)
on the day against Pork
JOSEFINO R. DELA CRUZ
August 27th, 2013 at 11:12 am
I ve gone over the breakdown of PHL budget for 2011-2013, the the caption source of funds, for 2011 there is a post of 255,000 million, for 2012 and 2013, it is zero. From the internet, I learned that there are funds called SAUDI FUNDS, and there are releases to the Government for the Southern Philippines: also, from CANADA, CIDA in particular had Grants thru IFC, ADB and other institution with grants amounting to about 1.2 B USD for the Philippines. I understand, there are lot others sources of foreign financial aids for the Philippines, which I am now trying to gather information.
There are lot other information from the internet, but I am trying to check the veracity, such as the funds related to ASBLP BANK.
JOSEFINO R. DELA CRUZ
August 27th, 2013 at 11:33 am
Re: Napoles fund releases, maybe the Authorities should run after the
resident auditors who gave clearances for the releases of checks. It should be done with urgency to expedite the investigations being conducted. I had been transacting with the Government, and it is the standard operationg procedure the releases shall be cleared with the auditors. The Napoles and her cohorts wont be able to perpetuate with those activities without the collaboration of the auditors and the likes in the Government.
For fund releases, the procedure I know is as follows:
1. An agent will look for interested party to advance money ranging from 5% up for the approval and release of SARO from DBM,, with the commitment that the Project or Purchase Order will be awarded to him/her with the blessing of the Lawmaker or the Head of the Agency.
2. Biddings will be rigged as manipulatede by the BAC of the implementing agency, the auditors with closed eyes, with their covered with commission for each every bidding, then it was 1% of the Bid Cost. The reason why there are always overstaying
District Engineers and other officers of the likes. Never mind their promotions because the take is much higher than the salary adjustments, honors and other benefits. The lawmakers help them to stay in the Districts they are assigned as they had established the syndicated corruption in their jurisdiction.
3. The corruption patterns follows. Now, with the boses making money from graft, all the subordinates down to the janitors find ways to suck money from poor taxpaying enterprises, who are comnpelled to deliver substandards and underspecs or ghosts