Pork barrel, Senate’s most alluring plum

By Gerry Garcia

ASIDE from being just a block away from the presidency, a senatorial seat also carries with it the most alluring plum dangling above the noses of every senatorial wannabe — the pork barrel. Each senator gets a pork allocation of more than a billion pesos for six years, compared to the P210 million given each congressman and party-list member every three years. That’s why the race for a senate seat is so frantic that even opposition bets finding themselves outside their mother party and    penniless  can  easily  change  their   minds  and  begin singing the song of  mother Administration who has the might in machine and money…. and most probably the generosity to share it.

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What should be music to the ears  of  sober-minded members of the electorate is the news that at least five senatorial bets have preferred to  forgo their pork barrel shares, especially  if they are not talking through their hat.

One of them, at least, is perceived to be on the level: reelectionist Sen. Ping Lacson. Ping had previously given up his pork barrel funds and has indicated he’ll not change his mind, if elected again. The other four, who still have to show they are not lying, are detained ex-Navy Ltsg. Antonio Trillanes IV and Ang Kapatiran bets Martin Bautista, JesusParedes II and Adrian Sison.

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With the Cha-Cha move currently in the freezer, cries for dismantling the senate have not exactly  tied down.  There are media reports that various urban-based groups in Luzon are calling for a boycott of Monday’s elections on the belief that the new senate will be no different from the out-going one — an expensive debating club with almost negative legislative achievement.

Voters are being urged  just focus on electing the best candidates for congressional and local posts in tomorrow’s polls and skip voting for senatorial bets altogether as a collective protest against the  appalling  erosion of the once-revered Senate into a non-performing  legislative chamber that politicians have turned into a launching pad of their personal and partisan interests.

(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/here-and-there/)

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