A lot of vagueness attends current discussions of the pork barrel. The lack of precision in the use of terms complicates questions like: what to abolish, who has the power to abolish, and how to reform the system. The ongoing hearings at the Supreme Court have clarified the meanings of many of the terms we … Read more

The original pork barrel system we borrowed from the United States pertains to projects introduced into the appropriations bill by members of Congress. This practice is now frowned upon as a throwback to the era of patronage politics because, while the costs are borne by every taxpayer, such projects tend to benefit only local or … Read more

Toward the end of his privilege speech on the pork barrel scam last Sept. 25, Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, one of the lawmakers who have been charged with plunder, claimed that he and his colleagues in the opposition were being unjustly singled out and persecuted for something that is widely known and/or practiced by perhaps every … Read more

It is difficult to say which is preferable: a party-based politics that sometimes results in governmental gridlock, or a money-based politics that runs smoothly on pork barrel privileges.  America today illustrates the deep-rooted dysfunctions of the former, while the Philippines showcases the perverse pragmatism of the latter. The other day, many offices of the US … Read more

For more than 10 years, a good number of lawmakers, with the aid of the fixers who assisted them, were able to pocket the entire cash value of their Priority Development Assistance Fund, without anyone in government publicly protesting that there was anything wrong in what they were doing. That is astonishing. It reveals a … Read more

Fate could not have written it better if this was a movie script. The convergence of recent events in our society is filled with many ironies and is deeply disturbing. It invites thoughtful reflection. At the highest level of our government, the country’s most senior senator, who has lived through some of the most critical … Read more

Forty-one years after Ferdinand Marcos imposed authoritarian rule on the Filipino nation, we tell ourselves with all conviction that never again should we permit this to happen.  But, the first step toward preventing the nightmare of dictatorial rule from becoming a reality is by understanding the conditions of its possibility. Martial law was not the … Read more

One does not need to have a Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or e-mail account to realize how vastly different today’s demonstrations are from those that led to the downfall of the Marcos regime 40 years ago. Organizing “mass actions,” as they were then called, involved a lot of planning, coordination, and negotiation among the … Read more

As a rule, people almost everywhere tend to be distrustful of their politicians. So long as the rest of the government functions smoothly, however, this skepticism hardly affects the nation’s social system as a whole. But, one can imagine to what new depths the trust ratings of Filipino congressmen and senators have sunk in the … Read more

It’s an outrageous way of calling attention to one’s lingering presence. But that is what the arrival the other day in Zamboanga City of armed groups identified with Nur Misuari, the founding leader of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), amounts to. The plan to march in formation through the city’s streets and hoist the … Read more