Understanding the Pork Barrel* (and why it should be abolished)

*(with apologies to Prospero Nograles and Edcel Lagman)

Solita Collas-Monsod Professor Emerita School of Economics

OUTLINE: Seven Questions

I. What is meant by Pork Barrel? II. What can be gleaned from thesese denitions? III. How is the Pork Barrel Being Justied? IV.What is the Real Reason Behind the Pork Barrels Continued Existence?
Solita Collas-Monsod Professor Emerita School of Economics

OUTLINE: Seven Questions

V. What is the basis for the connection between the pork barrel and corruption? VI. Can the pork barrel be reformed? VII. Assuming that it indeed can be made corruption-free, can the pork barrel now be justied?
Solita Collas-Monsod Professor Emerita School of Economics

I. What is Pork Barrel?

1. From Oxford Dic/onary: Noun, North American informal

used in reference to the utilization of government funds for projects designed to please voters or legislators and win votes:
the lesson that power is based on the pork barrel and purchased with patronage 2. Pork barrel is the appropriation of government spending for localized projects secured solely or primarily to bring money to a representative's district.
Solita Collas-Monsod Professor Emerita School of Economics

More denitions
3. A government appropriation, bill, or policy that supplies funds for local improvements designed to ingratiate legislators with their constituents. 4. The act of using government funds on local projects that are primarily used to bring more money to a specic representatives district. Basically, the politician tries to benet his/her constituents in order to maintain their support and vote.
Solita Collas-Monsod Professor Emerita School of Economics

II. What can be gleaned from those denitions?

1. That the pork barrel is a legislative phenomenon 2. That the pork barrel makes no reference to economic growth and development 3. That the PDAF certainly qualies as pork barrel; but abolishing the PDAF does not necessarily abolish the pork barrel. It can easily mutate into other forms/names:
Solita Collas-Monsod Professor Emerita School of Economics

Mutations of Pork Barrel in the Philippines

1989: 1990: 2000: 2000 to 2010: 2009:
Solita Collas-Monsod Professor Emerita School of Economics

Mindanao Development Fund (P480 m) and Visayas Development Fund (240 m) Countrywide Development Fund (P2.3 b) Priority Development Assistance Fund to PDAF was added at some point the VILP (Various Infrastructure including Local Projects) and the Congressional Insertions (CI). PDAF (P10 b);VILP (P23b); CI (P50 b)

Philippine Pork Barrel Mutations

Nota bene: 1989 Pork Barrel: P720 million 2009 Pork Barrel: P83 billion Between 1989 and 2009, consumer price index went up about FOUR times. Pork barrel
increased ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN times.

2010 present: Congressional Insertions abolished

(which for 2010 amounted to P64B); VILP folded in with PDAF; more and tighter rules ; Pork barrel back to roughly P25 billion.
Solita Collas-Monsod Professor Emerita School of Economics

III. How is the Pork Barrel being Justied?

1. individual members of Congress, far more than the President and their congressional colleagues, are likely to be knowledgeable about the needs of their respecAve consAtuents and the priority to be given each project.
Comment: But the local development councils, in which the Congressperson is a member, already has a development plan and investment program, which contains a master list of projects and priori/es of the community. Why subs/tute individual wisdom for collec/ve wisdom (par/cipatory and inclusive to boot)?
Solita Collas-Monsod Professor Emerita School of Economics

Pork Barrel Justication

BTW, Nograles and Lagman are quoting from the SC decision re the CDF. But the SC decision also says: in short, the proposals and iden:ca:ons made by the members of Congress are merely recommendatory.

Solita Collas-Monsod Professor Emerita School of Economics

Justication of Pork Barrel (contd)

2. the relaAvely small projects implemented under the PDAF complement and link the naAonal development goals to the countryside and grassroots as well as to depressed areas which are overlooked by central agencies which are preoccupied with mega-projects Comment: It may be true that the central agencies overlook small projects, but the provincial and municipal and barangay agencies certainly dont. The pork barrel ignores the laMer all too oNen. For the most part, they are not men/oned at all by the member of Congress as having inuenced his/her choice of projects.
Solita Collas-Monsod Professor Emerita School of Economics

IV. What is the real reason for the pork barrels continued existence?
1. It is a means by which the executive can control the legislature and bend it to his will (by releasing or withholding the funds) 2. It is the means by which the legislator can assure his victory (and/or that of his family) in elections.
Comment: No/ce that these are benets which accrue to the so-called servants of the people, not to the people themselves. In short, this is CORRUPTION (the use of entrusted power for private gain).

Solita Collas-Monsod Professor Emerita School of Economics

V. What is the basis for the connection between the Pork Barrel and Corruption?
1. In 1996 there was an expose of the corruption surrounding the CDF, based on the testimony of an unidentied whistleblower. He has just recently been identied (upon his death) as then Marikina Congressman Romeo Candazo of Marikina. Candazo outlined the sharing scheme, between congressmen and other government ofcials (from 19% to 52%) It was this expose that a) led to the institution of reforms and b) the abolition of the CDF (but the PDAF took its place).
Solita Collas-Monsod Professor Emerita School of Economics

The Pork Barrel and Corruption

2. Outrage over corruption in government in 2007 brought back the memories of the pork barrel and corruption. This led to a stirring defense of the pork barrel in early 2008 by the newly elected House Speaker (Prospero Nograles) and House Appropriations Committee Chair (Edsel Lagman).
Solita Collas-Monsod Professor Emerita School of Economics

Pork Barrel and Corruption

3. 3. And now the recently released COA Special Audit on the PDAF and the VILP for 2007-2009. Main nding:
75 % of soft pork and a little over 1% of the hard pork were found to be questionable improper or highly irregular
Solita Collas-Monsod Professor Emerita School of Economics

Pork Barrel and Corruption

Massive corrupAon
Pork Barrel Funds Appropriated, 2007-2009:
PDAF P29b; VILP P51b; Total P80b Pork Barrel Funds Released , 2007-2009:
PDAF and other P14b;
VILP P102b; Total- P116 b Pork Barrel Funds Audited by COA (2007-2009): PDAF and other P8b; VILP -P33 b; Total P41b Pork Barrel Funds use found to be improper or highly irregular: PDAF 6 b; VILP P.31b
Solita Collas-Monsod Professor Emerita School of Economics

Pork Barrel and Corruption

Irregularities, improprieties found:
a)
releases for projects identied by 74 legislators exceeded their respective allocations b) implementing agencies (IAs) used the funds without due regard to existing rules and regulations c)
infrastructure projects found decient d)
infrastructure projects built on private lots
Solita Collas-Monsod Professor Emerita School of Economics

Pork Barrel and Corruption

e) 70% of funds released improperly/illegally/ irregularly went to only 19 NGO, all seemingly of dubious origin. The other 30% went to 63 other NGOs. f) NGOs were chosen without public bidding only on the basis of the purported endorsement of sponsoring legislators g) six NGOs were incorporated by legislators or their relatives
Solita Collas-Monsod Professor Emerita School of Economics

Pork Barrel and Corruption

h) Beneciaries names corresponded to list of passers in professional board exams. i) Other supposed beneciaries denied having received any help j) Suppliers without business permits, or unknown.
Solita Collas-Monsod Professor Emerita School of Economics

Famous Last Words

since the advent of the CDF in 1990 and the institution of the PDAF in 2000 up to the present, there has been no post-audit report by the Commission on Audit (COA) directly associating any Member of Congress to a serious abuse, misuse and/or infraction in the utilization and implementation of the muchmaligned congressional funds. Nograles, Lagman, in Understanding the Pork Barrel
Solita Collas-Monsod Professor Emerita School of Economics

VI. Can the Pork Barrel be Reformed?

The proof of the pudding is in the eating: in spite of the tightening and streamlining of the pork barrel, the 2012 COA audit reports show that tuloy ang ligaya.

Solita Collas-Monsod Professor Emerita School of Economics

VII: Assuming that it indeed can be made corruption-free, can the pork barrel now be justied?

NO. IT STILL SHOULD BE ABOLISHED. WHY?

Solita Collas-Monsod Professor Emerita School of Economics

A CORRUPTION-FREE, REFORMED PORK BARREL SHOULD STILL BE ABOLISHED. WHY?

BECAUSE it is institutionalized dissipation of

public resources

It embodies the divide by N syndrome,

dened as the mechanical and feckless dissipation of development funds across localities rather than their rational allocation to where these have the most impact

Solita Collas-Monsod Professor Emerita School of Economics

The Effects of Divide by N: (see Philippine Human Development Report 2012-2013)

Solita Collas-Monsod Professor Emerita School of Economics

87 airports, most of which are within a 2-hour ride from one another 140 seaports, 40 of which have little trafc (another 72 were ordered in 2009, but contract was rescinded by PNoy) 534 main and satellite campuses of state universities and colleges alongside 93 LGU colleges and universities and 1604 private institutes, with faculties that are underqualied with respect to graduate degrees

Divide by N

Fragmentation of projects across space and

time

Bridges that lead to nowhere Dirt roads interrupted occasionally by concrete paving Projects with little or no development signicance (waiting sheds, entrance and exit arches, multipurpose pavements)

Solita Collas-Monsod Professor Emerita School of Economics

In SUM:
Even were the pork barrel projects completely untainted by corrup/on, even if it was not ins/tu/onalized pilferage, there will s/ll be the problem of ineciency and waste (e.g., dispersion vs. integra/on, projects with very liMle developmental impact, projects that are duplica/ve or decisions that are beMer done by exis/ng agencies )
Solita Collas-Monsod Professor Emerita School of Economics

ABOLISH THE PORK BARREL!

Solita Collas-Monsod Professor Emerita School of Economics