UNFORTUNATELY there is a provision in the Puno draft charter that would prompt pork-barreling: section 25 (f) of Article VII (Legislative Department) reads: “Discretionary funds appropriated for particular officials shall be disbursed only for public purposes to be supported by appropriate vouchers and subject to such guidelines as may be prescribed by law.”
Discretionary means: left to or done at one’s own freedom to judge or to choose. Of course the cunning lawmakers will use their freedom to make such laws that allow themselves to circumnavigate such guidelines.
The loophole will be discovered later by a bright journalist or shyster lawyer. But if he/she will have the guts to question the validity and constitutionality of such law is questionable.
Section 12 (a) of Article IX (Judicial Department) reads “... and when such bill has become law, any citizen of the Philippines may still question the validity if he claims it is unconstitutional as applied to him.
In the present 17th Congress senators have a pork slice of P200 million each and House of Representatives have augmented theirs from P70 million to P80 million. That makes P4,800 million for 24 senators and P23,760 million for 297 representatives. Together, that’s P28.560 billion.
That is about the 133rd part of the P3.767 trillion national budget for 2019.
The system contradicts the democratic principle of the separation of powers, which demands: The legislators make the laws and the executive power implements them. No person belonging to the legislative branch of government can at the same time be a part of the executive power.
If legislators execute their own laws the door is wide open to corruption.
The SC ruling forbade post-enactment stages of the budget execution but did not forbid the ante-enactment. The lawmakers discovered the loophole and now fill in the application forms before or during the sessions naming, specifying and itemizing their pet projects like waiting sheds, basketball courts and a kilometer or two of concrete street here and there etc. That way they please their constituents and prompt them to re-election.
Filipinos, brace for another pork-barrel scandal.
Article XIV (Accountability of Public Officers) provides a range of measures to deter public officers from committing bribery, graft and corruption. Section 1 reads: “Public officers and employees must at all times be accountable to the people, serve them with utmost responsibility, integrity, loyalty, and efficiency and act with patriotism and justice, and lead modest lives.”
Compliance with these expectations would also save considerable amounts of taxpayers’ money which means more funds for the real needs of the nation: schools and teachers, hospitals and nurses, land reform and support for farmers, railways and autobahns, ports and airports etc. (Erich Wannemacher, German Expat, Lapu-Lapu City)