The Unfinished Business

Kendra Lorin Eng10

2012-20855 Position Paper

The Unfinished Business

"Maki-baka! Huwag Magbaboy!" (Go beef! Not Pork!). The call against the pork barrel

has been finally heard. After the Supreme Court's decision of pork barrel's unconstitutionality,

protesters can now heave a sigh of relief especially with the president's approval of the

"pork-less" 2014 national budget. This assurance, however, is short-lived for the 2014 budget is

not really "pork-less" after all.

From our experience of pork barrel system, we have learned how easy this system can be

tampered with. According to the Supreme Court, pork barrel system allows "authorize/d

legislators-whether individually or collectively organized into committees-to intervene, assume

or participate in any of the various post-enactment stages of the budget execution" which has

been also the ground for SC's declaration of its unconstitutionality (Torres-Tupas). When pork

barrel would have been a mean to achieve economic goals through its projects, it became a

medium of corruption, preventing the achievement of its goals because of its poor transparency

measures. For this reason, pork barrel, in its essence, should be totally removed from the

national budget in accordance with SC's decision and to promote a better administration of

services to the Filipinos.

According to Cariño, pork barrel "refers to appropriation in the Public Works Act

intended for projects variously denominated as short-term rural progress projects under the

socio-economic program, or as short-term projects, which may be subdivided into miscellaneous

community projects, and nationwide selected projects, or such similar appellation" (1). With this

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definition, we apprehend that pork barrel targets development goals through short-term and

small projects that are more specific on a problem and a district or region in the country.

Examples of which are scholarship programs, small infrastructure developments and health care

programs. That is why, pork barrel is relatively...