The Looters and Plunderers

 In a small island 2127 kilometers away from Manila lies a small province veiled into seclusion to the worlds externalities. Dinagat Island, the place of poverty and destitute is being robbed by a corrupt government of the Ecleo- a political clan dominating Dinagat Island since 1963. Since then, it remains the poor and sick island in the Pacific. Even Dinagat has a vast deposit of nickel, chromites, and other mineral; it is still one of the provinces in the country with the lowest provincial income.

Dinagat Island never progresses.

 There is an overwhelming insufficiency of basic services which whips the ever religious and un-defiant locals. The province have are only 3 districts hospitals to serve cascading numbers of 127,000 people, the regional hospital is in Surigao City which is more than one hour away by boat, 75% of the total population is living below the poverty line, [1] no concrete establishment of infrastructure projects, [2] roads are still turbid with mud during rainy season and deluded with dust during muggy summer, school buildings stand rotten. Since then The Ecleo’s has been accepting PDAF for but yet there is no ember of improvement that stimulated in the province.

My point in putting Dinagat in here is to draw an imagery of how adverse it is to have a PDAF being raped by plunderers of the worst kind. PDAF or the Priority Development Assistance Fund or commonly known as the Pork Barrel is the mechanism of the government especially those on the local government to spark an improvement to their respective provinces by giving them regular allocation of public fund for priority projects that are vital in obtaining provincial improvement. This is channeled through their district representative. It is given to representative because of the notion that legislators can easily access the potential improvements of their districts since they have the first hand experience on the condition of their constituencies.

There are two issues here. On one hand, is it a constitutional duty of our representative to have a monetary control over the funds in their provinces since the only thing that they are mandated to is to legislate and makes laws? And on the other hand, since we are talking here of millions of pesos and people are naturally abusive when they can sight opportunity for them, PDAF then is a potential money-mill for politicians to divert the public funds into their own pockets?

I do not want to deal with these questions because only expert in the field of law and governance can answer it.  I just want to say two things, first is the appetite of Janet Napoles to fool and betray the Filipino taxpayers is inferior to level of appetite of our senators and congressman who bark against corruption and upholds good governance when in fact they are the first class looters and plunderers. This is not the sin of Napoles herself. We all sinned in our own way. We put insatiable swine into office because they are famous celebrities and good actors, we left everything in the government, we only become vigilant until scandals in the government is basking itself to us but after that we forget it and move on with another scandals without taking along with use the lessons that we should have to learn from the past.

Our men has been swimming to the infinity of poverty, been confronted with a dilemma do anything just to survive their daily lives, been into situation that they just want to be gone and left the intense boredom and suffering they have in this world, been so hungry that makes them shiver because their body is eating up the last fat they have. Surely some of the people up there have been controlling the opportunities. There is. This is what they really call evil that manifest it truer form.

Now, it gives me the impression of it is not the government or the system of pork barrel which is wrong; it is those who control such system, the insatiable swine who make feast over people’s money, the highest criminals are in office- politicians.

Even though that PDAF is really intended for people and for the development of their respective districts, the people is left with no other option but to call for scrapping of PDAF. It is unfair for the taxpayers and also for the government to be robbed face to face with pretenders who fool voters that they have sympathy for the Philippines. I see them as rapists who endow opportunity in the people’s money- such a shame for a third world country to be raped by first class crooks.

I just want to share a story, one night after the Million People March in Luneta, I went to SVD mission seminary to talk to an old friend, after that I went to hear mass. During the homily, the priest who also went there told a story about his first hand experience that day, Fr. Arlo Yap said that attendees of the Million People March has different aim in going there- ordinary citizens are there to call for total abolishment of PDF, party-list are there to call not for abolishment of their PDAFs but only to abolish the Presidential PDAF, vendors are there to earn from the crowd- but amidst all this, they are certain in one thing, never to be robbed again.

This might not be the conventional reaction paper like most of my classmates had written; this is a ditch of rebellion from a student. I wish even just of a day, senators, congressman, Napoles, and their cohorts will experience our peoples experience of poverty, to vend water in the middle of traffic haze and smudge in Edsa, to be hungry and shiver, to live on the sidewalk with all the dust and pollution, to sell on the sidewalk and run as fast as they could when policemen will chase them, to be tormented into unventilated garrisons, be bedridden on public hospitals without bearable comfort, to study on a classroom without dissent chairs and board, to walk on muddy and dusty roads to sell your products.

 Majority of our politicians today are greedy.

 One day we will altogether forget and move on with the same poverty and wickedness- we let our collective destiny that dictates us. We elect the same family, the same clan, the same name into office. Sometimes, it is somehow hard to fight against corruption and PDAF scams when we elected the people who are suppose to be vigilant about the funds but didn’t. Take for example Senator Jinggoy Estrada whose name has been dragged in PDAF anomaly, he was quoted by saying:

“It is not up to the senators to determine whether an NGO [non-governmental organization] is bogus or not.” Alangan naman na kami pa ang magsasabi na, ‘Uy, bogus ‘yan.’ How will we know?”[3]

He said that it’s not his responsibility to check whether an NGO which has allocation from the pork barrel fund actually committed to its job. He is in fact saying that he as senator is undiscerning to where the people’s money, entrusted to him go. That serious laxity of his part is never justifiable by any reason- Truly; young Estrada shares the same skin of his father- and the ever loyal voters keep them, value them, and put them on high government positions.

 There a lot of talking happens. There a lot of persecution happens- but will this aid the poor, dying, despair Filipinos to carry on with their lives? I remember Fr. Roque Ferriols, The Father of Filipino Philosophy who says that, “when everything has been said, the most important things are left unsaid- only actions.”

 Today, we are not just call to be informed. We  are called to not be petrified by our inactions.