Rejoinder to "Why blame President Noynoy Aquino?"

This is in response to Mr. Harvey Keh, who asked “Why blame President Noynoy Aquino?” An essay which begins by praising the Million People March of August 26 for having “a good turnout” and disses “several groups that are planning to hold another protest rally this coming September 11.”

 

Mr. Keh says he received “some messages” about this rally, which he is obviously critical of, especially since according to him “many of those who went to Luneta now have second thoughts of going since there are now rumors circulating that the planned rally in EDSA may suddenly be turned into an Anti-President Noynoy Aquino rally.”

 

Were Mr. Keh at the EDSA Tayo Facebook pages, he would find that there are about five individuals who are organizers of the event instead of “several groups,” just as there is no plan to “form a human chain.” He would also find that it has since revised its call (from protesting the rampant graft and corruption in the use of the pork barrel) to the abolition of all pork barrel, including PNoy’s, which is not unlike the call of the August 26 Million People March.

 

Sometimes research is all it takes.

 

Ah, but it seems the point of Mr. Keh in this essay was not simply to diss the rallies that are happening after August 26. The point is to defend – no, celebrate! – President Aquino for all he has done. Mr. Keh says: “Unfortunately, some groups are trying to muddle up the issue and trying their best to spin the issue so that they can pin the blame on President Aquino. Yet, if one closely looks at the facts and the pronouncements of President Aquino, we can clearly see here that instead of being criticized, we should actually thank and support him.”

 

And because Mr. Keh thought it proper to give us three facts that prove how PNoy is fulfilling his promise of matuwid-na-daan, let me respond to those three facts.

 

Mr. Keh’s Fact #1: Without PNoy’s “full backing and support”  this whole pork barrel scam and Janet Napoles wouldn’t have been uncovered by the NBI and the DOJ.

 

But was it not the exposés of the different media outlets that kicked off the investigation against Napoles et al? Was it not the Commission on Audit Report that kicked off the public outcry against the pork barrel, alongside the discovery of Jeanne Napoles’ lavish lifestyle? In fact all this time the government’s just been trying to keep up. It still is.

 

And if we want to give PNoy full credit for these ongoing investigations against the pork barrel, then shouldn’t he be the first to reveal how he spends the Office of the President’s own “pork barrel” which is billions of pesos (it is said) in discretionary funds? How can he be for the investigation of the pork barrel and Napoles without putting his own office up for investigation?

 

You want PNoy’s support for this pork barrel investigation to matter? Put his own office through it.

 

Mr. Keh’s Fact #2: That “the people have spoken” and PNoy has said he will “push for the abolition of the PDAF or pork barrel.”  According to Mr. Keh, this is a risky move because our Congressmen are unhappy, and it makes PNoy “vulnerable to impeachment in Congress.” In this section Mr. Keh inadvertently reveals how the patronage system via the pork barrel fund works: that is, he says that without the PDAF, PNoy will lose the support of Congress, and PNoy will have a harder time having much needed legislation passed.

 

Because  apparently legislation is not about WHAT laws are urgently needed, as it is about how much money PNoy might award via PDAF to senators and congressmen to pass such laws. Apparently what we have is a financial exchange between PNoy and Congress. So much for being in the service of nation.   

 

But Mr. Keh says this is exactly the point. PNoy had the “strong political will” to abolish the PDAF towards creating “a more transparent and accountable system.” However, this does not mean abolishing the patronage politics that comes with the pork barrel.
 

This is what Mr. Keh and every-other-Malacañang-apologist fails to understand. The rallies continue despite the idea that PNoy is for the abolition of PDAF, despite the long drawn explanations of how the new system will be fool-proof and corruption-free, because it does not mean the pork barrel system is over. It only means that now congressmen will have to go through a more stringent process in order to get their money, but in the end it will be the prerogative of PNoy if he will giveth or taketh away.

 

In the end, it will still be about patronage politics, that which is inherent in the act of giving these pork barrel funds to congressmen, instead of coming up with a real transparent and working system of funneling the money straight to basic services.

 

The latter is what PNoy refuses to come up with. That is why we call him out still. The new system that Malacañang has been asking us to believe in does not do away with the patronage politics contingent upon the exchange for those pork barrel funds.

 

Mr. Keh Fact #3: “Many of those whom I have talked to regarding this issue have said that even with the abolition of the pork barrel, corruption will still continue in our government unless several “big fish” are punished and put into jail because of this scam. This is the reason why President Aquino and DILG Sec. Mar Roxas made sure that our law enforcement agencies are able to immediately catch Janet Napoles, who is widely believed as the mother of this billion peso pork barrel scam.”

I LOL, that is laugh-out-loud. Laughing out loud (LOL) because Janet Napoles was not caught by this government, she surrendered, under the strangest of circumstances by the way, and replete with VIP treatment by the DILG secretary and the President. “Ma’am Janet”?  Hello?

You also say that “the worse thing that could happen is for some political leaders who are currently embroiled to move heaven and earth to kill Napoles and permanently silence her,” which is obviously a jab at defending the VIP treatment. I say: there is no reason to treat her like she’s the beacon of light, because in fact at this point this is larger than Napoles.

 

This is as large as the pork barrel fund, including those we’ve lost to corrupt practices and patronage politics of which PNoy is part. This is as large as the discretionary funds that the Office of the President hasn’t accounted for all these years. This is larger than Napoles, because the call is to scrap all pork, including PNoy’s. And that has nothing to do with whatever investigating body the President has put up for an honest investigation of Napoles.

 

Mr. Keh says that it is clear the PNoy is “committed to pursuing justice and to ensuring that all those who have abused the pork barrel are punished whether these are his allies or not.”

 

If Mr. Keh is certain that PNoy has made this commitment, then I wait with bated breath.

 

Mr. Keh ends by saying that it is clear to him that PNoy is keeping his matuwid-na-daan-promise, but, sadly, groups blame PNoy for the pork barrel scam. The truth is, people are not blaming PNoy for the pork barrel scam; but we are asking him to completely and absolutely turn his back on the pork barrel and the system of patronage and corruption that it encourages. We are asking him not just to scrap the PDAF, and not just to come up with a “new” system that will mean more paperwork for a congressman before he gets his pork barrel fund. We are asking PNoy to not let our senators and congressmen get their hands on any of that taxpayers’ money.

 

Mr. Keh says that PNoy has proven that he “is one with every Filipino in fighting graft and corruption in our government and the least that we can all do is to support him in this fight and continue to remain vigilant against those who want to bring our nation back to the dark ages.”

 

You want to leave the dark ages? Tell PNoy to stop with the patronage politics and abolish pork barrel system. Tell him to come up with a national development program that takes care of funneling those funds to basic services for every province, district, barangay, full stop.

 

Maybe then this country might see the light of day.