Pork, flood control, and history

In 2016, the Department of Budget and Management published a paper entitled “The end of pork as we know it.”

- TONYO CRUZ

The pork the DBM was referring to was not lechon, but bacon which enterprising officials sought to bring home.Scandals and consequent protests against pork barrel ultimately led to the Supreme Court striking down the Priority Development Assistance Fund (congressional pork) as well as schemes under the Disbursement Acceleration Program (presidential pork) as unconstitutional. The court handed down the rulings in 2013 and 2014.

I mention these because these are very useful to finding a way forward toward resolving the flood control corruption issue. Both the DBM paper, and the court decisions, lay down the long history of pork barrel in particular and the corruption of the national budgets in general.

I believe we are in trouble because the main political protagonists gloss over this history, with the most popular competing narratives limited only to politicians and contractors identified with the previous and current administrations. It is as if Philippine history ended or only began in 2016 or 2022. The super-shortened and oversimplified timeline depends on the traditional political camp pitching the narrative.

The court decisions of 2013 and 2014 actually gifted us not just the outlawing of congressional and presidential pork barrel.