"Too much pork is not good for one's health, but lawmakers don't seem to mind," was Gil Cabacungan Jr.'s opening statement on his article on the Philippine Daily Inquirer entitled Solons vote to award selves with more pork.
Out of 199 House members present at Tuesday's plenary session, only 4 voted to turn down what Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casino calls as an additional pork barrel for lawmakers. Only four (4!!!) lawmakers knew that too much pork is bad for the health.
The additional amount would be taken from the multibillion-peso road user's tax, which would give them control of between P20 million and P30 million in funds for their pet public work projects. Moreover, these representatives get P70 million each year in priority development assistance fund (PDAF) allocation.
The House Bill No. 4069 authored by Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez transfers the disbursement of funds collected from the Motor Vehicle User's Charge (MVUC) Law (otherwise known as the road user's tax) from the Road Board composed of Presidential appointees to the legislators.
Cabacungan Jr. writes, "Suarez said this should not be considered pork barrel as the money would not come from congressional funds. He said the money would stay with the Department of Public Works and Highways and the lawmakers would just designate which projects should receive funding from their respective allocations."
According to Suarez this should address complaints that not all congressional districts were getting their fair share of the road user's tax.
But here is what Casino said in regards to his vote: "We all know that this road user's tax is fraught with anomalies. A lot of exposes and Senate investigations have proven this. We really need to reform the allocation of this fund which involves billions of pesos. But this conversion of the MVUC funds into something like the PDAF, or pork barrel, is not the solution to the problem."
He further explained that it is like transferring water from a pail with a big hole to another pail but with smaller holes of which the effect is that the leakages and opportunities for anomalies will not be plugged.
I guess this is another great milestone for the legislators in their vows to serve the Filipino people. All legislators get more pork, our only hope is that it trickles down to the people because, let me reiterate what Cabacungan Jr. said, "Too much pork is not good for one's health."
