First and foremost we need this Freedom of Information (FOI)
law. Come hell or high water this bill must be approved by the Aquino
administration. This law is the people’s best weapon to check abuses by the
Officials who are entrusted to manage big funds of our government.
In the recent budget preparation intended for the year 2014,
part of the Pork barrel of the President’s P1+trillion allocation is Special
Purpose Fund (SPF). For purposes of budgeting lawmakers must assign items in
the General Appropriations Act (GAA) of 2014 where funds will be appropriated so
that Congress can now have a check and balances function. A transparent
disbursement of this big fund must be imperatively made.
We can't just let the President exercise its full discretion
on what to do and how to spend, and empower him to realign, disapprove or
withhold huge amounts and practically entrust him to decide where all the money
would go. This exercise is vested in congress and any disbursement is unconstitutional if it is without legislative appropriation. Hence this calls for the abolition of the pork barrel of the President.
Like the creation of the Disbursement Acceleration
Program (DAP), ex Sen. Arroyo described the DAP as “criminal, illegal
and unconstitutional,” The DAP is worse than the PDAF, at least the PDAF is authorized by Congress but the DAP was created only by the DBM Secretary Florencio Abad and approved by President BS Aquino sans the authority of Congress. The Budget Department has no business issuing funds from
the DAP because it cannot do so without a supporting law. “DAP involves money
so to disburse that, they must have the authority. Nowhere in any of our laws
or the GAA would it appear that DAP was created at all with the sanction and
support of Congress,” He added that even the senators who appropriate the money
didn’t know about it, until last week from Sen. Jinggoy Estrada’s revelation
that each senator who voted to convict Corona received P50 million in extra
funding purportedly from the DAP.
So let’s educate ourselves and awaken those who are in deep slumber
that the solutions to this festering problem of corruptions committed by no
less than our leaders in the government must only be solved and stopped by a
force of a united citizens acting to protect the interest of the masses, the
"Boss" of the servants who are public Officials. That's where the people's real
power comes in. These scams must be treated by us as the awakening point to
spawn motive of actions, the dawn of the real change of the entire nation's
attitude is not far fetched to make the whole citizenry politically matured.
Every one's desire to have a functional government becomes a rallying point, a
catalyst for the genuine change to attain a better government.
We have to learn from yesterday,
live actively for today and hope for a better tomorrow. Make our wish which will be translated to
work and get it done. Have the courage to accept a tough challenge ahead of us,
sometimes we encounter failures in the battle but keep the fight, we will not
be able to solve our country's problems at once but by showing our WILL to do
and we can do it for a change with great courage. Remember courage is
contagious. Stand firm with the goal of achieving a God-based governance enough
not to go backward and be cautious not to go forward fast to attain
short cut but gradual effort and to have a persistent endeavor for the better,
ruled by love of country and man then you can witness what seems failures may
turn out to be a glorious success. "As long as we have passion in our hearts and fire in our bellies nothing is ever impossible," Rita Linda V. Jimeno said.
The role of the people in
combating corruption and ensure public officials do their duties and
responsibilities as public servants is important. We should be the vanguards in
the fight by making the political leaders and officials accountable of their
actions, decisions and use of public funds. We should not be contented to be
mere bystander citizens because what the nation would become out of their
doings affect everyone of us, but this surely be attainable if we don't remain passive,
indifferent and unpatriotic negligent. Let’s assure ourselves that all
these scams should not have happened had we been vigilant and firmed in getting
rid of the bad politicians masquerading to be angels in white linens who are
good in rhetoric but nothing in deed. This total mess of corruption and pork
barrel scam can be averted by the people's actions and possibly will not make our country sick again. Prosecute and jail the corrupt Officials and pork barrel manipulators. They are traitors. They don't deserve our trust. Apply the full force of the law.....And beware of
a man who is a self-proclaim righteous person.
