The Pork Barrel Scam

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Made by: Matthew Uy Jerome Celeres Timothy Chua Franco Delos Reyes Gian Sychiango

 

What is this magazine about?

In the past few months, the Philippines has dealt with one crisis after another such as the Zamboanga crisis and the pork barrel scam. Both of these events have caused great strife and pain to all of it's citizens. In this magazine, we will be specifically focusing on the pork barrel scam. Our main goal is to inform all of you readers, more about the pork barrel scam so that all of us can know what the country is going through and how you can help in rebuilding the country after this extremely sad and regretful event. Aside from this, we also hope that through his magazine the pork barrel scam may never happen or recur again and that we were able to make a difference in helping the country rebuild after this crisis.

Main Purpose

The magazine will be talking about more about the pork barrel scam such as it's history, what is it about and etc. Aside from this, we are going to be explaining it's effects on the different aspects of the Philippines, mainly: the economics, politics, society and culture. We will also be providing action plans on how to possibly rebuild and reunite the nation after this horrible and saddening event.

Content

After reading this magazine, you will already know what the pork barrel scam is. Aside from this, you will also know what pork barrel is and it's history. From this, you will be able to understand what the country is undergoing and what are it's effects in the economy, politics, society and culture of the Philippines. You will also learn how you can help rebuild the country in the aftermath of the pork barrel scam and what are the things you need to do to help stop this from ever happening again.

The things you will learn

 

What is pork barrel?

The term pork barrel originated from American history. Prior to the civil war, the slaves in the southern part of America were traditionally be provided salted pork as a gift to enjoy on holiday. The slaves would frantically run for the barrel. The onrush of the legislators to get a subsidy was reminiscent to how the slaves would frantically run to the barrel. However the pork barrel system did not originate in the Philippines. It originated from America and was brought here by the Americans when they first colonized us. The Americans used the pork barrel to "divide and rule the Philippine assembly" in 1916. During martial law, then President Ferdinand Marcos abolished the pork barrel and distributed the money instead to his cronies but was reintroduced by President Corazon Aquino in 1986. Over the years, the pork barrel program has had many different names including the Countryside Development Fund, Congressional Initiative Fund, and currently the Priority Development Assistance Fund but they are all practically just the same thing but with different names. Aside from the Philippines and America, other countries like Australia and Scandinavia also use the pork barrel system in their country.

History

Definition

Pork barrel is defined as the appropriation or money set aside for government spending for localized projects secured solely or primarily to bring money to a representative's district but the term pork barrel for each country may have some alterations or differences from it. In the Philippines, the term pork barrel is used to mean funds allocated to the members of the Philippine House of Representatives and the Philippine Senate to spend as they see fit without going through the normal budgetary process or through the Executive Branch. It can be used for both "hard" projects, such as buildings and roads, and "soft" projects, such as scholarships and medical expenses. Beginning in 2006, the amount was 70.0 M pesos for each of the 289 Representatives and 200.0 M pesos for each of the 24 Senators.

Now the pork barrel system both have it's own advantages and dis-advantages. The advantage is that it allows issues and and major problems to be resolved quickly through funding from the legislators. It also allows for the further development of the different aspects essential to a country, in the Philippines since the senators and representatives can choose what to fund their budget on. The disadvantage is that it is very susceptible to graft, corruption and abuse from the legislators themselves. This became very evident during the presidency of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the Priority Development Assistance Fund became the biggest source of corruption among the legislators. Kickbacks were common and became syndicated. They used pre-identified project implementers including government agencies, contractors and bogus non-profit corporations as well as the government's Commission on Audit. Unfortunately even though, there were already doubts of what some of the legislators were doing, there was no investigations conducted or trials held to stop them.

Advantages and Disadvantages

 

What is the pork barrel scam and how

did it start?

The pork barrel scam is basically the alleged misuse by several members of the Congress of the Philippines of their Priority Development Assistance Fund, or the funds granted to each member of Congress for spending on priority development projects of the Philippine government, mostly on the local level. The scam was first exposed in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on July 12, 2013, with a six-part exposé of the Inquirer on the scam centering businesswoman Janet Lim Napoles as the scam's mastermind after Benhur K. Luy, her second cousin and former personal assistant, was rescued by agents of the National Bureau of Investigation on March 22, 2013. This is four months after he was detained by Napoles at her unit at the Pacific Plaza Towers in Fort Bonifacio to prevent him from reporting anything to the police. The investigation was initially centered around Napoles' involvement in the 2004 Fertilizer Fund scam, the government investigation on Luy's testimony has since expanded to cover Napoles' involvement in a wider scam involving the misuse of PDAF funds from 2003 to 2013. Although, It was only this year, when the public first saw the scale and size of the corruption related to the pork barrel that they started to actually do something about it.

Pork Barrel Scam

It has been estimated so far that the Philippine government was defrauded of some P10 billion in the course of the scam, having been split between Napoles, participating members of Congress and other government officials. Some examples of these are Revilla, P224,512,500; Enrile, P172,834,500; Estrada, P183,793,759; former Masbate 3rd district Rep. Rizalina Seachon-Lanete, P108,405,000; and former Apec Rep. Edgar Valdez, P56,087,500.

Aside from the PDAF and the fertilizer fund maintained by the Department of Agriculture, around P900 million in royalties earned from the Malampaya gas field were all taken by the dummy non-government organization created by Napoles. The scam has provoked public outrage, to abolish the pork barrel. On August 26, 2013, National Heroes' Day in the Philippines, the public held the million people march to call for the end of the pork barrel. Thousands of people attended it. They were joined by simultaneous protests nationwide and by the Filipino living and working in foreign countries around the world and I believe this is a perfectly normal reaction. Listen to this. The Philippines spends around 24-25 billion pesos each year for the budget of the Priority Development Assistance Fund or the PDAF. Since 2003, an estimated 10 billion pesos have been stolen from the government, which means in only the span of 10 years, 10 billion pesos have already been stolen. This amounts to 1 billion pesos, which is about 4 percent of the entire PDAF, being stolen each year. This is a ridiculous amount of money being stolen, which could be used to alleviate the many problems that plague this country such as helping solve poverty in the Philippines.

Statistics of the pork barrel scam.

This pork barrel scam has also greatly affected the economy, politics, society and culture of the Philippines.

 

Pork Barrel Effects

Economy- The effect of the pork barrel scam on our economy is huge. The Philippines has many problems plaguing it such as poverty, lack of industrial development, lack of educational development and etc. Now the pork barrel scam takes the badly needed funds of the Philippines and stuffs in the pockets of the corrupt politicians. It means that less there will be less money available for what is more urgently needed, such as education, fighting poverty and violence; and it exacerbates the ballooning of national debt since you will have to get some of the funds meant to pay back the national to replace money which had been stolen. Aside from this, the taxes of the people do not to go to proper spendings, which would benefit those suffering from poverty such as public buildings and projects and basically the situation therefore become a “the poor gets poorer while the rich get richer” problem. Also instead of dealing with other national or internal problems, we have to deal with another extra problem due to the greediness of some people like the corrupt government officials, this can lead to drop of the economy since there is no trust between them and the people.

Economics

Politics

Politics- The Pork Barrel Scam has also made huge impacts on the politics of the Philippines. The first and foremost effect is the lack of trust on the public officials. Since it has been exposed and shown to the public that the government is filled with corruption, they will obviously have doubts from now on, whether they are actually working for the betterment of the country or not. The pork barrel scam has also caused rampant hatred towards our current leaders, because of it, more and more people are branding the government as an avenue for the corrupt because of everything they have displayed so far. This will cause an uproar among the people, which is already evident with all the rallies and protests they have been doing so far. This might also cause them to rebel and fight against our government which will cause chaos to the community and civil unrest. Aside from this, the lack of trust among public officials is also another affect. All the politicians have started to turn on each other in order to find out who are the ones guilty of misusing the PDAF and to protect their own self from being caught. This is important because the government is like, one big machine, if one part gets broken then the machine won't be able to function, this is the same for the public officials, if they can't work together they won't able to develop and make the country better.

      Pork Barrel Effects

Society- In the everyday society of the Philippines, the impacts or effects of the pork barrel scam is really evident and clear. It has affected the society in two main ways, the first being the injustices done especially to the unprivileged people because they do not receive the services and help from the government and the inequality that the people who need help the most aren’t being served by our government and the money of the people is only going to their already deep pockets. The second and more bright effect is that we can see the Filipinos unite under one banner to make a change such as during the Million People March so in short it has reawakened the Filipino nationalism among it's citizens. Now this in itself is good but if it ends up that the public will have to fight the government, it won't be a positive effect anymore since it could result in the lots of blood being spilled over. Aside from this, the country needs both the government and the people to get along in order for it to prosper and grow since the government cannot function without the people because the people are the ones who hold the true power since they are the ones who choose the leaders and pay taxes for the funds the government needs and the people need a leader to take care of the entire nation.

Society

Culture- The culture of the Philippines has been drastically changed because of the pork barrel and if it is not stopped, it will just continue to worsen. The first impact is the cycle of corruption. The Philippines has become quite well known for having corrupt political leaders in both local and international scenes. The pork barrel scam further justifies the point that the Philippines has a lot of corrupt government officials. In our culture, our view of our own leaders is also getting damaged. We see or view that all or most of our politicians are corrupt, greedy personnel and instead of actually growing and building our nation’s culture and reputation, we are damaging it internally due to many various corrupt allegations thrown at the own officials that the people have chosen to represent them and the things fueling these ideas and beliefs are the different acts of corruption that happens within the government such as the pork barrel scam. Aside from this, the pork barrel has also reaffirmed the idea, whenever there is a problem that needs to be solved, the people just need to rally and protest to get the government to do something. However this is wrong, a rally is supposed to be a last resort option when the government won't really do anything about it but it has become part of the culture that if you want the government to do something or make changes then creating a rally should be the first option.

Culture

   

In light of the recent pork barrel scam, there has to be some things done and changes made by the government, citizens and the students in order to rebuild the nation and to ensure that it does not happen again.

Government: The government on the other hand, have to work in regaining the trust which has been lost between them and the public since without trust the government won't be able to function properly which will also lead to chaos. They have to create some change or reforms within the government and re-evaluate everything they have been doing so far because based from what has been seen from the pork barrel scam, there is a lot of corruption going on within the government itself. They can first do this by making every political leader found guilty of misusing the PDAF resign, so that the public will be able to sleep well in night knowing that there will be a better tomorrow. Aside from this, they should also start to work together to solve issues, instead of fighting and bickering on who is to blame and whether they are guilt or not. Their goal should be to work for the betterment of the country so when a problem arises they should be able to quickly find a feasible solution instead of what happened in the pork barrel scam. They simply ignored what was happening over the past 10 years and only acted when the public start to take drastic measures like riots and protests however, this should not be the case. Aside from this, they should start spending the funds they have properly and create new projects or development programs in order to make the country better unlike what happened in the pork barrel scam, where there were leaders who just stole it.

People: The citizens or the public have to be more knowledgeable and aware of the different things happening in the country. They cannot just rely on the government to do everything for them and then when something goes wrong, they will just blame it all on the government. It is necessary for the people to take a more proactive stance in helping the nation develop and grow so that when a problem occurs they can deal notice and deal with it immediately, not like how it took 10 years for the pork barrel scam to be found out and something done about it. It is people who have the power to make their nation, more prosperous, peaceful, fully-developed and fully thriving. They are the ones, who have the ability to elect their political leaders. This is why, it is important to vote wisely. It is important to actually know who is the person you are voting for and what are his credentials. They cannot simply be indifferent and choose their leader based on some random impulse or the gifts they use to shower them with. This is the exact same reason how the pork barrel scam started, corrupt officials were put into power and then they misused the Priority Development Assistance Fund they were given. Aside from this, they also have to work hard and do their responsibilities and duties so that they can contribute to the betterment of their country, this might seem very simple to do but if everybody just showed that they cared then this country would be able to fully develop and prosper.

Student: The students too, can do things in order help rebuild the country and change it for the better. In the near by future, they will eventually grow up and be ones to run the country and be part of society. When this time comes, it will be their duty and responsibility to contribute and work for the betterment of the country and the society. To be able to do this, they will have to be prepared for the world and know what to do. They can do this by studying hard, doing their homework and taking their schoolwork and education seriously. They will also have to be aware of the things that are happening in the country so when the time comes, they will be able to solve the problems that are plaguing the country. Aside from this, they have to learn to develop their character and learn how to be "men for others". If they grow up being indifferent and not caring to those around him, it will reflect on how they will act as adults and citizens in the future. If in the future they act like this, then the entire pork barrel scam may just end up being repeated again. Now the main reasons why the pork barrel scam happened was because the politicians lacked character and morale value while the public were indifferent to what was happening around the country so the politicians were able to take advantage of this and misuse the PDAF and despite there being signs that there was something wrong going on it took them 10 years to put their foot down and do something about it. They can develop their character by practicing it in their daily lives like always telling the truth and helping your classmates and siblings in their studies and etc.

Action Plan Made by: Matthew Uy

     

Action Plan Made by: Gian Sychiango

The government should take check and balance seriously and by honestly declaring their SALN so people would know their lifestyles is parallel to their earnings so they will know that they are efficient or effective leaders. Filipino people must be vigilant in watching performance of the leaders. These political leaders are expected to be servants. People must join rallies, signature campaigns and symposia that promote awareness As a student I should be always updated on what is happening in and out of the country so that if an issue comes out I can post it in a social networking sites and share it to the public so they will also be updated with it also.                                                              

Action Plan

Made by: Timothy Chua

The Philippines Government consists of men and women who are generally corrupted; we know this through the current problems such as pork barrel, graph and corruption. Philippines’ Government officials are the current “famous” people; such as Manny Pacquiao. We elect these people, whom have no knowledge of governing a state or a baranggay because of their influence on us as an actor, talk show host and generally famous people. A Government that is filled with these kinds of people caused the society of the Philippines these problems, Graph, Corruption and Pork Barrel (Illegal take on funds). As Filipinos, we can almost do nothing about the current leaders but hold cases and rallies, but as a whole community, we can chose more wisely in the next election, not only the ones whom we treasure for being famous artists or actresses, we can help the Philippines by picking and electing better leaders. As the Government themselves, they can see the leaders who are not corrupted and follow their steps, by doing this the whole Government officials will be influence by a great leader, one who is not corrupted and sooner or later the influence will be imbedded in them and they too will be like one of them. Another way is to recognize themselves (as the corrupted ones) and step down if they deem themselves unqualified as a senator. The senators can also stop all of this Graph and Corruption by working together and not let their greed take over but the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. As a student, we cannot do anything specifically but we can help the future elections by studying hard and analyzing each selectee and pick which one is the more qualified for the position in the Senate. Another way as a student is to become a leader (senator) yourself, with studying hard and helping the people one by one, the society will see you fit to become an official. All of these solutions solve one problem, Corruption. It is because of our current leaders and the leaders before that corruption is imminent on our country; we mistook the famous people as great leaders and now are causing corruption. There can be one simple solution from all of this is to not let greed take over, this “greed” is the cause of all of our problems such as corruption for more power and pork barrel for more money collected. If our officials overlook their greed and focused on the society of the Philippines, we wouldn’t have our current problems right now but we can be a developing country, removing corruption and improving the society.

 

 

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