A reader wrote to ask: Why would anybody want to make Grace Poe President with only one and a half years of public service? The reader pointed out that Benigno S Aquino III served nine years as congressman and three years as senator while Mar Roxas had 20 years of experience in government as Cabinet Secretary and as a senator. His points are valid and Grace Poe may not be ready for the highest position in the land.
But that is exactly the core of my column “As fate would have it.” Some of the persons who went on to become President are not exactly the most prepared for the job, like Cory Aquino and Joseph Estrada. Cory was an accidental President because of the power vacuum created by the first People Power that drove out Ferdinand Marcos. Erap was mayor of San Juan, a senator and Vice President before becoming President but he is best remembered for his philandering and plundering.
Cory was a woman of destiny swept to power by the people. Erap was a mistake that can be blamed on our stupid voters who are mesmerized by movie stars.
Money distributed by candidates during election campaign also corrupt the electoral process
The one candidate—Jejomar Binay—the reader didn’t mention is the very reason Grace Poe is surging in the poll surveys. Poe is the only one who can stop Binay from becoming President. Not Roxas, not Alan Peter Cayetano nor the highly qualified Miriam Defensor Santiago. Unprepared Poe may be, she is the anti-thesis of what we are learning of Binay. And there lies the reason why both Binay and Roxas want her to be their vice presidential running mate. They want to marginalize Grace because they are afraid to lose to her in 2016.
I’m not a fan of Poe but I’m hopelessly hopeful to see in my lifetime real change in this country. I’m not even sure if Poe can deliver this change as long as we don’t get shortchanged again. So I will, like many others, take a leap of faith with Grace rather than choose between Roxas and Binay.
Where did the money go?
Our worst suspicion about the squandering of funds in the Conditional Cash Transfer for the poor has been confirmed by the Commission on Audit which reported that P1-billion cannot be accounted for by the Department of Social Welfare and Development. The COA said 364,000 families whose names were not on the CCT database were listed as beneficiaries.
The COA report also revealed that there were double payments. There were people whose names appear twice. Filipinos working overseas were listed as beneficiaries.
The poorest of the poor are supposed to receive P1,300 per family to be spent on food, health (for pre-natal or post-natal care) and education of children below 14 years of age. The Pantawid ng Pamilyang Pilipino Program or 4 Ps was started by the Arroyo administration, continued and renamed as Conditional Cash Transfer by Aquino. The program meant to serve as safety net against the poverty trap is implemented in Indonesia, Brazil, El Salvador and Spain.
We have to ask Social Welfare Secretary Corazon “Dinky” Soliman: Where did the money go?
Soliman had already faced a congressional inquiry into the CCT coverage when she sought a bigger budget which has now reached P62 billion. Nothing came of the perfunctory House committee hearing. Could it be congressional allies of the administration are also beneficiaries? By including their constituents in the program even if they are not really dirt poor, the congressmen and other local officials can gain their support in the 2016 elections.
If we think the allegations of anomalies against Health Secretary Enrique Ona who had the decency to resign is huge, the corruption in the CCT program could even be bigger if the P1-billion irregularity COA discovered is just the proverbial “tip of the iceberg.”
A COA report dated Dec.15 discovered that DSWD despite receiving P2.57-billion, failed to build homes for tens of thousands of typhoon victims who still don’t have roof over their heads. The COA report also showed that portion of the cash assistance for victims of tropical storm Sendong which hit Mindanao in 2011 were used for other purposes.
More than P1.8 billion in the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) before it was declared illegal by the Supreme Court remained unliquidated by the DSWD, according to the damning COA report
There’s a lot of explaining to do by Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman on the CCT distribution alone. This latest COA report on the diversion of funds for typhoon victims gives President Aquino no excuse not to demand her resignation.
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