Palace spokespersons link to blog which calls pork protest 'hypocrisy'

On the eve of a rally to protest the pork barrel scam, presidential spokespersons Edwin Lacierda and Abigail Valte on their Twitter accounts posted a link to a blog entry criticizing the protest action, entitled “The Hypocrisy of Indignation.” Valte retweeted a link to the opinion piece on Sunday afternoon. Lacierda did the same about an hour later. The blog entry both Palace officials linked to described the people's anger as "a nice but misplaced statement." It also expressed support for the Aquino administration and criticized certain groups and politicians who also plan to attend the event, including "old militants," it said, "jubilant that finally, once more, they can take to the streets in an orgy of hate against whomever is in power." Communications undersecretary Manuel Quezon III, for his part, was critical of the Catholic Church, whose clergy had urged participation in Monday's rally. "Good to put fear of God in pols, but 6 years late? WRU when reps. lined up for gift bags in 2007 and then fed at the trough for ChaCha?" Quezon tweeted. In a press briefing last Friday, President Aquino said that the administration does not consider the gathering a threat and even thanked those who would attend it. "Bakit tayo kakabahan? Dumami kakampi natin sa pagsasaayos sa sistema. Maraming salamat sa kanila," he said. At the same briefing, Aquino said he wants to abolish the current pork barrel system, known as the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), and replace it with a "new mechanism." The protest march was conceived by people on Facebook and spread through social media, triggered by the news of a P10-billion pork barrel scam allegedly engineered by businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles. Palace employees can join rally – Valte Valte also said Sunday that the Palace has no problem if its own employees join Monday’s protest action. “Malaya naman. Malaya ang lahat sumali sa ganitong pagkilos,” she said on government-run dzRB radio. When asked if Palace employees are also free to join, Valte said, “Kami wala naman problema.” She also said the Metro Manila and Manila police have set up security measures to make sure Monday’s event will be peaceful and orderly. Valte said the Palace encourages “participatory governance” and vigilance over the workings of government, including the projects being proposed by lawmakers. She said it is up to the citizens “to take part in participatory governance.” Valte also reiterated that while the Commission on Audit had reported on the results of a special audit on the PDAF use from 2007 to 2009, the PDAF use from 2010 onwards is already posted on its website. She said the audit of projects funded by PDAF can be found in the report on the national government agencies that were tasked to implement the projects. — BM, GMA News