TAKING A STAND AGAINST PORK BARREL AND CORRUPTION: OUR SPIRITUAL AND MORAL OBLIGATION AS STEWARDS OF THE LORD

The steward who defrauds his master in an attempt to receive future favor from the people who benefited from his dishonest acts sees his masters resources as a means for his own personal enjoyment and advancement. Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. For no one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. The Parable of the Dishonest Manager (Luke 16:1-13)

Public Office is a Public Trust. The fundamental task and obligation of individuals in the government is to serve the best interest of the people and should not discharge his position out of self-interest. This principle is particularly important to elected officials, who from the moment of their election have to perform many obligations with potential conflict of interest. The unfolding story of the P10 Billion Pork Barrel Scam and the P600 Million Malampaya Fund Misuse in the national scene; and the false promises of tobacco farmers welfare and development from the RA 7171 (An Act to Promote the Development of the Farmer in the Virginia Tobacco Producing Provinces), and the perennial unliquidated cash advances from the provincial coffers are illustration that our elected officials have lost sight of this primary principle of honest and truthful public service. They have defrauded and robbed Gods people of their taxes; taxes that came from hard-earned incomes of workingmen and farmers. These officials are dishonest managers who used public funds entrusted to them for their own personal enjoyment and advancement. The Meaty Pork and Leafy Tobacco Funds. Under the pork barrel scheme, legislators and members of the executive branch receive lump-sum allotments from the National Budget. Congressmen and senators received P70 Million and P200 Million respectively which we call PDAF. The executive department on the other hand calls it with many names. The President in particular has three significant sources for lump-sum funds the Special Purpose Fund, Presidential Social Fund and the Malampaya Gas Funds. The Presidents pork barrel for 2014 is P1.3 trillion, more than half of the proposed National Budget which is P2.24 trillion. On the other hand, RA 7171, a law intended to improve the lives of our tobacco farmers states that 15% of the taxes collected from manufactured Virginia-based cigarettes will be given to Virginia tobacco producing provinces. The Province of Ilocos Sur produces almost 60% of Virginia tobacco in the country. Its accumulated RA 7171 share from 1996-2012 is P9.147 Billion. Its Implementing Rules & Regulation (IRR) appropriates the provincial share into the following: 30% each for the provincial government and congressional districts, and 40% for the municipalities and cities, said 40% is further divided into 50% to be shared equally and 50% to be distributed according to the volume of Virginia Tobacco Produce. The Lords commandment Thou shall not steal! Janet Napoles, the woman in the center of the controversy was able to skim from the P10 Billion PDAF allocations channelled to her fake NGOs from taxpayers money. Funnelling of funds to fictitious NGOs associated with Janet Napoles persisted under Aquino. Based on the Commission on Audit report released in August 16, 192 lawmakers misused their funds. Some of which are now members of the Aquino cabinet and the ruling party Liberal Party. According to an Inquirer report published in August 26, around P500 million were again awarded to fake NGOs during Aquinos administration. Similarly, government auditors were able to discern P1.3 Billion worth of misused, misappropriated and/or remained unliquidated by the provincial government from 1999-2005 (Newsbreak May 5, 2009). Despite this huge share, the province has an accumulated debt interest of P333.74 Million from 1997-2011 to the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation (PDIC). The Commission on Audit (COA) have also noted in their 2012 Audit Report the inefficient management of public funds such as the P20.023 Million worth of funds for infrastructure projects transferred to LGUs that has no liquidations reports and the P25.30 Million possible savings from the bloated number of contractual workers. What is to be Done? Bishop Oscar Cruz was able to sum it up perfectly from his closing message during the Forward March -- Prayers are good but prayers alone are not enough. We, too, must act. But our actions must not be limited on the call to abolish the pork barrel. We must look and go beyond the P10 Billion stolen by Napoles and her cohorts; and also study, expose, and condemn the massive thievery of public funds in the local level. To be able to do this, we must arm ourselves with both the wisdom from the scriptures and analysis of contemporary socio-political issues to be able to examine the entirety of the issue.

It is for these reasons that we, members of the different faith and churches joined together, discussed the issues among ourselves and shared our God-given wisdom with each other to better comprehend and articulate the issue on corruption, patronage politics and the pork barrel system. After we have bowed our heads for the guidance and wisdom of the Almighty and thorough exchanges of views, we have come to the following conclusions and recommendations: 1. The pork barrel is inherently vulnerable to corruption and the ultimate tool to promote patronage politics. The effort of Malacaang to sanitize the issue by providing the pork barrel with another name and seeming new mechanism is not a just and honest response to the strong clamor but rather a plain grand deceit of the people. To truly abolish the pork barrel system, we endorse the following recommendations of the Peoples Movement for Change: a. Remove the congressional and presidential lump sum appropriations from the GAA. b. Rechannel the funds directly to agencies and list projects and programs to be funded by said appropriations as line budget items. c. Reiterate in the GAA that line item budgets sourced from the abolished pork barrel appropriations are too be fully implemented and not subject to the discretion of the President or any member of Congress. d. Introduce stronger freedom of information provisions in the GAA to ensure transparency and accountability in the use of public funds. 2. The RA 7171 has served as the milking cow of politicians. It has failed to uplift the lives of tobacco farmers and has enriched a handful of politicians, reinforced political dynasty, and sustained patronage politics in the province. We hereby call for the following: a. Use the funds for programs and projects that would directly benefit the farmers and support genuine agrarian reform. b. Review and amendments of the provisions of the law and its IRR to ensure that the funds will be utilized only for projects that will directly benefit the farmers. c. Allow greater public participation and access to information regarding the utilization of the fund and to monitor program/project implementation. d. Conduct a special audit of the RA 7171 provincial share from 1993 up to present; and make the involved individuals accountable if any misused, misappropriated and/or unliquidated funds are discovered during the special audit. Singed during the Ilocos Sur Ecumenical Movement Discussion-Workshop on Pork Barrel & Corruption held at the City Church of the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, Candon City, Ilocos Sur. September 23, 2013.

REV. MARCELINO B. MARIANO Co-Convenor, ISEM United Church of Christ in the Philippines

MSGR. COSMENIO M. ROSIMO, Jr. Co-Convenor, ISEM President, Clergy Assembly Archdiocese of Nueva Segovia

In the presence of:

RT. REV. VERMILLON TAGALOG Bishop, Diocese of La Union, Ilocos Sur & Abra Iglesia Filipina Independiente

United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP): Revs. June Paplonot, Jerry Arzadon, Lyndon Ubuan, Roel Balabag, Maricar Duminsil, Ofelia Segundo United Methodist Church of the Philippines (UMCP): Revs. Joel Bengbeng, Augusto Dosdosen, Ernesto Gonzalo, Jose Balocanag, Benson Nang Iglesia Filipina Independiente (IFI): Frs. Ferdinand Lacanaria, Jed Manzano, Danilo Habon