With Great Power

You know what ticks me off?

About the pork barrel scandal, you get jackasses like Senator Drilon who insist that giving out money is the duty of an elected representative. Otherwise, he says, without the pork barrel,we should just abolish congress altogether. 

Good grief.

He says it like that's a bad thing. Anyway, assuming that we continue the pork barrel as is, does this mean that our lawmakers are gonna be more careful with how they spend the people's money? Not so says Senator Estrada. According to that buffoon, it's not the responsibility of the Senator to verify the NGO involved! Well, how about that!? Senator Enrile apparently agrees with him on this assessment. And I thought Enrile was supposed to be the "smart" one.

What this boils down to is quite simple. Our representathieves just want all the money and power, insisting that it's absolutely necessary to their jobs but at the same time want none of the actual responsibility when it all goes to hell. What two-faced, good-for-nothing parasites.

Sometimes, I wonder if people will ever tire of suffering these idiots.

Ten Minutes

 

They got her.

No wait, they didn't. She surrendered to the President who then had a little chat with her for ten minutes and personally brought her to Camp Crame. Yes, the President of the Philippines personally escorted the suspected mastermind of the pork-barrel scandal. El Presidente even rode the lead car, which is the most dangerous position in a convoy! Who's the boss here?

There's a lot of hubbub in the social media networks. A lot of people are yelling about Janet receiving special treatment or that the President could have made a "secret deal" with her on who to spill the beans on and who to protect. It does seem suspicious. A lot can happen in ten minutes...

Here's my take. What I think happened was, Janet approached the President out of fear of her safety because there's a lot of lawmakers who have no qualms about giving the old deep six to the odd blabbermouth or two. In an effort to look like he's taking charge, Dear Leader jumped at the chance and perhaps imagined himself as a Caesar in his triumph with the reviled enemy as a prisoner in tow. But being inexperienced at taking charge of things and not blaming others, El Presidente instead, only managed to look servile and the whole thing raised more questions. What did they talk about in those ten minutes? Your guess is as good as mine.

The President should know by now that this is the social media age. The vocal "anti-pork" groups are beasts that lurk on Twitter and Facebook. Therefore, they are not so easily swayed by the excuses of his spokespersons or his lackeys in the media. If it looks suspicious, hell will be raised. You can't wrestle the narrative man, it's not like the old days. This whole mythology of The President as the son of heroes with a glorious legacy won't hold, at least, not on people with enough brains to use a computer. The poor maybe, but remember, his enemy right now are the social media kiddies and some of them are quite competent.

What remains to be seen is if the social media crowd can translate their movement into something concrete like a party or voting bloc. Anger isn't enough. That anger must be transformed into a tangible thing; voting power.

As for Janet, well... due process, etc., etc., all that crap.

More BS from BS

Today, El Presidente gave a press conference to address the outrage over the "pork barrel scam". Actually, it's not entirely correct to call it a press conference since he didn't deign to allow hard questions. Anyway, he said the words he should have said years ago; "Panahon na po upang i-abolish ang PDAF. (It's time to abolish the pork barrel)."

Except not really.

In an amazing moment of blunt political doublespeak, Dear Leader then went on about how a "new mechanism" is needed to address the needs of the people. Jesus Christ, this man still DOES NOT GET IT. 

A "new system" to allow lawmakers to fund their projects? Hey, here's a novel idea; How about we let the lawmakers focus on studying and crafting laws like they're supposed to and just send that pork money in the general budget. I'm sure the Department of Public Works and Highways can make better use of that money like say, drainage for floodwater? Just a suggestion.

The problem here is that El Presidente seems to miss the problem entirely. He sees the pork barrel system as perfectly alright and the problem is just  the misuse of the money. He made a statement that the PDAF could be used for "good or evil" and all we need are better guidelines. His simplistic way of thinking fails to dig deeper to the root of the problem; that the pork barrel IS the problem. It's unnecessary, it's prone to corruption and only enforces the patronage system of politics where we have to beg for scraps from the tongressmen and representathieves.

Let me tell you a story.

The Rains of Every Year

by ThatGuy

You live in a house. It's a bit crowded  and smelly but it's a charming old house that's quite beautiful and you call it home. However, there's a large gaping hole in the roof. When the rains come, the rainwater just pours into your living room and ruins all the furniture and appliances, not to mention soak everyone. Tired of being drenched day in and day out, you all chip in to hire the only carpenter in town.

The next day, a balding carpenter in glasses and yellow overalls arrives. He looks a bit stupid and arrived later than scheduled but he assures you he knows what he's doing. He takes a look at the hole and scratches his head.

"You know..." He starts. "This hole isn't really all that bad. On sunny days, it provides free natural lighting. It can be a good thing or a bad thing." He grins.

"Yeah, but we're living in a country that rains often! We can't just sit here waiting to see if the sky decides to rain or not. I'd rather have it fixed!" You say.

"Well..." He begins again in a condescending tone you steadily begin to hate. "What you really need is a better system to deal with the problem. You should check the weather bulletin to see if it's going to rain or not. If it rains, you and your family should just leave. Alternatively, we could just move all your living room furniture into the kitchen. It'll be like a New York studio apartment!".

"Well, can't I just have it fixed? I'd rather have it fixed." You say as it becomes increasingly clear there was no getting through to him.

"Fixing a hole this big is just too much work." He sighs. 

"If you're not going to fix this, me and my family are going to rally in front of your company's main office this Monday!"

"Oh no, don't do that!" He says with a look of panic on his face. "I'll get on it right away!"

You and your family leave for the mall for a few hours while the carpenter does his work. When you arrive, what you see leaves you speechless. "There, it's fixed." the carpenter says proudly. You are amazed to see an array of pots, pails and basins placed on strategic locations to "guide" the rainwater and keep it "regulated". All the furniture are covered with large tarps which you pray are at least waterproof.

"Here are some yellow raincoats for you to wear too for when it rains! I made them myself." He smiles with glee as he hands your youngest with his very own branded yellow raincoat. He hands you the bill.

"That will be about ten billion pesos, Sir!"