On the PDAF

By DUCKY PAREDES
MALAYA

‘Would there be a chance that if the party-listers did not get the same PDAF as the district congressman or even if they got no PDAF at all that some of them would not find becoming a party-lister attractive enough?’

Bongbong Marcos and Bong Revilla

ACCORDING to an ongoing series of reports in another newspaper, “five senators and 23 members of the House of Representatives (allegedly) made available their pork barrel funds to dummy non-government organizations for purported ghost projects worth P10 billion over the past decade, according to affidavits submitted to the National Bureau of Investigation.

“Sen. Ramon ‘Bong’ Revilla Jr. topped the list of lawmakers who purportedly allowed the use of their Priority Development Assistance Funds (PDAF) to the scheme.”

Revilla supposedly gave the syndicate access to his PDAF using dummy NGOs in 22 instances; Senators Juan Ponce Enrile on 21 occasions; Jinggoy Estrada, 18 times; Ferdinand Marcos Jr., four; and Gringo Honasan, once.

The 23 in congress include Rizalina Seachon-Lanete of Masbate’s third district, 13 times; Conrado Estrella III of Pangasinan’s 6th district and Rodolfo Plaza of Agusan del Sur, both nine times; and Samuel Dangwa, of Benguet, eight.

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Of course. all of these legislators are denying everything. Even Janet Lim Napoles, married to a former policeman, denied all of the charges against her and her company in a personal letter to the President. (By the way, a Napoles daughter is now in congress representing a party list.) A company named JLN apparently set up bogus NGOs, duly registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) with people from Janet’s JLN acting as presidents of these NGOs. They would then apply with the different government entities for funding and get the approval of the lawmakers to order the government to take the money from the legislator’s PDAF. Then the government bureau or department would send out a letter to the bank releasing the funds. This would be drawn by the fake NGO and eventually deposited in the account of Janet’s company — JLN.

She would then take care of delivering the lawmakers’ shares of the loot.

But, isn’t the bigger question ought to be why we even give out any funds to legislators whose main job is the making of laws?

From the website of the House of Representatives, we have this: “The PDAF makes possible the implementation, in every congressional district, of small-scale but significant projects which cannot be part of large-scale projects of national agencies. These projects, which are generally in the form of infrastructure, health, education and social aid packages, directly touch the lives of our district constituents, and make the government a meaningful presence in their daily lives.”

That’s fine if every centavo of these funds is actually spent for the purpose for which they were intended. Obviously, some of it has gone into the pockets of our legislators.

The PDAF has also changed the very concept of what public service is. Provincial board members and city and town councilors, seeing how legislators have yearly pork barrel funds, have also legislated PDAFs for themselves; and so have most barangays given their councilmen public funds.

One wonders: Aren’t we corrupting them by giving them public funds for them to use – basically – as they please? Can’t the government attend to the needs of these districts without those PDAFs released to legislators?

There have actually been resolutions passed in both the House and the Senate that exempt the PDAF from audit. What does this mean – that they feel that they should be able to use these funds as they like or for themselves?

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Another thing is this: If, as the PDAF website says “The PDAF makes possible the implementation, in every congressional district, of small-scale but significant projects. . .” why are Senators and Party-List congressmen who are elected through a national vote and have no districts to spend their PDAFs on, also given PDAFs?

Clearly, the PDAF is considered a privilege whose main purpose is to give our lawmakers an advantage that can be used at re-election time.

R.A. 7941, or the law on the Party-List says that the purpose of having them is to “enable Filipino citizens belonging to the marginalized and underrepresented sectors, organizations and parties, and who lack well-defined political constituencies but who could contribute to the formulation and enactment of appropriate legislation that will benefit the nation as a whole, to become members of the House of Representatives.”

I don’t really see why they should also have their PDAF, If their purpose is that of giving their special constituencies a voice, what marginalized and underprivileged sector could possibly be represented by party lists whose nominees all come from the same millionaire families and who also already have district congressman sitting in congress?

(Would there be a chance that if the party listers did not get the same PDAF as the district congressman or even if they got no PDAF at all that some of them would not find becoming a party-lister attractive enough?)

Let’s cut out the PDAF. This is something that should never have been started. It goes against all the rules about how government should be spending its money.

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Why is it that when a vehicle is registered with the Land Transportation Office (LTO) like when I registered my car two days ago, even when one already has a comprehensive insurance policy including third party liability for both damage to another vehicle and persons, the LTO still insists that you buy a TPL from a company that probably will never pay should you ever need to call on them for third party liability.

My insurance policy with a proven and trustworthy company is a superior one to the one that I was forced to buy at the LTO. I do not understand why I have to buy a TPL insurance from the company that operates within the LTO office.

If the fees that the LTO (or its personnel) earn from selling the policy pays for the service, why not just charge me for the service directly. I certainly would not mind paying a service fee. That is better than buying an insurance policy that I can tear up as soon as I leave the LTO premises because I really do not need it since I already have TPL coverage from a better insurance company than the one that sells its TPL policies within the LTO premises.

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