Pork perks

“ARROYO BROUGHT little ‘pork’ to her district, says DBM.”

So screamed a headline in the Nation section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer last Friday, July 20.

Again, leave it to the intrepid Tonette Orejas to dig up nuggets of information buried deep in governmental archives or under mounds of ledgers, vouchers, statements of accounts, whatever. Tonette has this knack too for keeping tabs in any paper chase.

So there, from the Department of Budget and Management came the disclosure that the former President, in her first House term, “managed to bring only P35 million in aid to the second district of Pampanga in 2010 and 2011.”

Minuscule, by the standards for “ordinary” congressmen, was Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s contribution to her district. Mysterious, it becomes, considering the P70 million due to every congressional district as Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF).

So did the sitting President’s publicly perceived vengeful streak extended to the hated former President’s PDAF?

 “There was no decision to withhold (Arroyo’s) PDAF.” So Tonette’s story quoted Budget Secretary Florencio Abad as saying.

So where did half of GMA’s PDAF due go?

Maybe, Tonette can dig deeper for the answer. That is if she does not have it yet and only waiting for the opportune time to reveal it.

Anyways, in the full year immediate to GMA’s House run in 2010, P434 million worth of projects flooded the second district. GMA’s current P35 million then but a driblet in the bucket. 

Ten months before GMA even confirmed her congressional plans, so Tonette reported, the Local Water Utilities Administration already poured in P10 million to each of the five water systems GMA inaugurated in the towns of Floridablanca, Porac and Sta. Rita.

Within that period too, a P100-million bridge over the Porac-Gumain River in Floridablanca was inaugurated. Not to mention the frenzied road improvement in Guagua and Lubao, plus some river rehabilitation works.  

With the end of the GMA presidency, the support of the national government to the second district has since declined. DPWH projects reached P218.2 million in 2011, sharply falling to only P20.2 million in 2012, with the 2011 projects in the process of completion, Tonette wrote, citing a report from the DPWH Central Luzon office.

Funds falling as fast and furious as political fortunes. The perks – and fleetingness – of power most manifest there.

Witticized the astute political observer Ashley Jay Manabat, editor of the Pampanga News and Luzon Urban Beltway Banner, both defunct, and defunct, er, resigned editor of extant Headline Gitnang Luzon: “Why complain of the little pork now, when the second district got not only the pig but the whole piggery in GMA’s time?”

Not that anyone among the mayors of the second district is complaining. On the contrary, they all have one rationalization or another for this “little pork” from Congresswoman GMA.   

All disagreeing too that their beloved representative is “under-performing” or neglecting the district in her current state of incarceration and un-wellness.

“Her services are regular although she’s not able to make the rounds of communities. We make up for what she’s not able to deliver when our resources allow.” So articulated Lubao Mayor Mylyn Pineda-Cayabyab of the prevailing sentiment of the local executives about their congresswoman. As Tonette wrote.

Make up for what GMA – in her situation – is prevented from delivering to her constituency with what resources they have or could spare. As with the mayors, so with the governor.   .

Governor Lilia Pineda herself, so Tonette reported, assured that the second district is not neglected with its own share of the 20-percent development fund of the Capitol.

As GMA during her presidency paid it forward to the second district, so it’s payback time for the mayors and the governor now.

So in the second district in 2013, bet it could be GMA pa rin.