The JLN pork barrel scandal

The whistleblower named the Senators and congressmen. The names are familiar and not unexpected.

The whistleblower was kidnapped because he wanted to set up his own scam. It gets nasty when crooks fall out.

Several politicians argue for the abolition of the PDAF, usually called the "pork barrel" by analogy with US politics.

Reasons given vary, and include:

1. The PDAF is by definition spent on projects which are likely to benefit the supporters of the politician whose PDAF it is, rather than the most deserving.

2. The means by which the PDAF is accounted are not the most transparent (see Senator Santiago's speech cited by JohnAsh) and it can be used for corrupt purposes (very much so in the case of the purported JLN scam)

3. Because the PDAF is effectively in the gift of the President, he can use the threat of witholding it to influence Senators and Congressmen. (President Aquino did so to get the RH Act passed, by way of example)

To my mind the second reason above is the most important.

OK thanks. Helpful explaination.

Excellent op-ed column in the Inquirer, referenced by Bob Couttie on Facebook, here:

http://opinion.inquirer.net/56945/pork-barrel-costs-and-benefits

A dissapointing summary.

I noticed the below, within it:

"Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago on Wednesday filed a resolution calling for an inquiry on the possibility of halving lawmakers'priority development assistance fund (PDAF) next year, halving the remaining amount in 2015, and totally abolishing it by 2016.

Santiago herself made the proposal to give senators and congressmen time to adjust to the abolition of their pork barrel."

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/07/31/13/miriam-wants-abolish-pdaf-2016

One of Senator Santiago's better ideas.Most legislators won't want to abolish their Priority Developmment Assistance Funds aka pork barrel immediately because the PDAF is the basis of their patronage structures, so they will need time to replace the pork barrel with something else; this gives them time to put their new arrangements in place, whilst getting rid of the pork barrel system, which, as may be seen, is hopelessly corrupt.

I've been in Manila for almost 2 years and to be honest, this isn't surprising, although it is very intriguing indeed.
The ROOT problem lies within the politicians themselves, the pork barrel scandal is particularly being blamed on JLN owner Janet Napoles who is the middle(wo)man.

The only way to put a stop to this is to have a foreign consultancy investigate who is involved and displace these crooks with severe penalties such as long term prison sentences. The elite in the Philippines control absolutely everything. In this case, it was a couple of people who didn't get their 'cut' got mad and exposed the scandal.

Although Marcos built the infrastructure, particularly of Manila, he was one corrupt bastard who stole not millions, but billions and to remain in power he bribed the politicians around him. On the other hand, Aquino, the current president has done absolutely nothing because at the end of the day, these schemers, in particular Janet Napoles, was exposed unwittingly by her daughter flaunting their lavish wealth which raised questions about their business operations such as £4,000-8,000 designer handbags, a brand new porsche, expensive watches blah blah blah.

The Philippines has one of the strongest economies in SEA however, with scandals like this, it's no wonder why they are making zero-minor progress as a whole whilst the rich get even richer.

Think about it - $21 TRILLION is the avg annual net worth of the Philippines, 5% of that is being given away like Christmas gifts instead of actually solving economic and social problems.

The lineage of politicians is nothing short of remarkable. There are numerous 'power families' in politics. Generations and generations of these children are being and have been groomed to succeed their predecessors and continue to economically rape the country of its wealth. It's worse than India.

The corruption of the political class pre-dated Marcos; I remember Freddie Clemo telling me that in the days of Elpido Quirino if you wanted something you asked to join a poker school on the Presidential yacht; in the morning your steward would inform you of how much you had lost and you wrote your cheque to the President.

In some respects the JLN scandal resembles the British Parliamentary expenses scandal, in that in both cases "a blind eye had been turned"for quite along time on abuses of a system that was open to abuse, for the sake of political convenience.

http://www.rappler.com/nation/36116-blame-napoles-system-netizens-debate

But the JLN scandal is on a different scale, eg:

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/462841/97-mayors-signatures-fake

Useful Facebook page here:

https://www.facebook.com/anonymousagainstpdaf?hc_location=stream

This shows the dimensions of the problem rather well:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/1098191_3312459468064_685977099_n.jpg

Anyone who hasn't already read this blog really should read it:

http://dulzspeaks.blogspot.be/2013/08/anonymous-speaks-pork-barrel-scam.html?m=1

This is on the money - see Napoles' visit to the Inquirer offices...

http://forumphilippines.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/possible-gimmicks-in-napoles-case.html

a well thought of blog...

http://professionalheckler.wordpress.com/2013/08/11/bebe-gerr-bejeweled-basketball/

I have just been reading about the Malampaya funds. WOW

An interesting development today is that Cardinal Tagle has weighed in - on the side of the investigation:

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/465001/pork-scam-moves-tagle-to-tears

This will make it harder for those implicated to sweep it under the rug.

Round up of today's developments:

53 million pesos in "pork barrel" money traced to a bank account controlled by Napoles

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/465783/p53m-ngo-deposits-traced-to-napoles-bank-account

Several more of the 97 mayors who allegedly received typhoon assistance from the proceeds of the Malapaya gas field off Palawan and whose signatures were allegedly forged on receipts say they never got a penny:

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/465853/more-mayors-deny-getting-funds-from-malampaya

Napoles owns 30 cars...

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/466363/public-alerted-on-napoles-30-pricey-cars

but her corporation paid less tax than a school teacher:

http://raissarobles.com/2013/08/15/...paid-less-taxes-than-a-public-school-teacher/

Raisa Robles, by the way, is very well thought of journalist; she is the Manila correspondent for the South China Morning Post and an occasional correspondent for the BBC and The Times.

The Inquirer's page of links on Napoles:

http://www.inquirer.net/napoles

From today's edition of the Manila Bulletin:

Continue reading

This looks like a "classic" Philippines political scandal, complete with vanishing suspects, attention diverted away from the elected representatives of the people, a purported kidnapping, extraordinary antics by lawyers, jobsworth-ing by the Police, etc.

In origin, this looks like the UK's Parliamentary expenses scandal - the idea of giving "solons" the power to direct where some Government funding should go, in order to circumvent bureaucracy and get money to where it was needed urgently - hence the name "Priority Development Assistance.." is a classic Filipino "work around" to avoid actually dealing with the state of the bureaucracy - it has suited successive Presidents because the "pork barrel" is in the hands of the President who may choose to withhold it in the knowledge that it will always be spent on works which make the "solon2 look good. This has given sucessive Presidents some leverage to get their bills passed by Congress.

So far so like the uk Parilamentary Expenses scandal - MPs were told they could not have a pay rise as the public would not stand for it but they could have big expense claims - "wink wink, hint hint" and that is what they did.

Actual diversion of "pork barrel" funds into the hands of legislators via fake NGOs may have been going on for years... the JLN case only came to light because two of Napoles' employees wanted to set up their own scam and were, they say, kidnapped and subjected to false imprisonment by Napoles herself. This was back in April so there has been a slow burn...

Some more here:

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/466983...ries-taken-from-list-of-board-bar-passers-coa

It gets worse. The Inquirer also published this story today:

It would not surprise me if Standard and Poores, and other ratings agencies, downgrades the Philippines from "Investment grade" to one more akin to "banana republic" as this story of institutionalised corruption, graft and resources rape unfolds.