Tag Archives: Patronage

[Press Release] Health advocates welcome victory over PDAF’s unconstitutionality -ABI-Health

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Health advocates welcome victory over PDAF’s unconstitutionality

Finally, the health of the Filipino people seizes to become just another target for political patronage of traditional politicians. This came as a result of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling that the Priority Development Assistance Funds (PDAF) is unconstitutional. With this latest development, health advocates have welcomed this as a hard-won gain of the mass movement’s continuing struggle.

ABI Health Cluster copy

Public finance in health is one of the critical issues in the people’s fight against the pork barrel system. PDAF is only 5.5 percent of the Special Purpose Fund (SPF), one of the presidential pork barrel funds. Therefore, the fight to scrap the other lump sum, discretionary funds continues.

Medical assistance for service patients, along with scholarships, has always been the justifications of politicians on why PDAF should stay. However, the recent review of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) of PDAF showed that these items got morsels from the billions of pesos spent for pork, only PhP3 billion or six to eight percent of the total pork released from July 2010 to June 2013.

According to Mercy Fabros, ABI-Health Cluster Coordinator, “for the longest time, poor people knock on the offices of congress representatives and senators like beggars begging alms for medical assistance; Because their mindset has been clouded by the assistance their receiving, the people do not fully understand that PDAF is sourced from their own money (taxes). It is their right to access health services and the obligation of the government to provide them. The evil of the system of patronage lies in the fact that it imprisons people constantly in a morally-degrading relationship with politicians.”

About PhP25.2 billion funds will be freed-up in the 2014 National Government Budget, which can be used to finance programs that would genuinely contribute to the achievement of Universal Health Care (UHC). The Department of Health (DoH) could use this opportunity to make its budget a real leap forward by adopting ABI Health Cluster’s proposed alternative budget.

Now the rendering of PDAF as unconstitutional and forwarding of funds instead to frontline agencies such as the DOH insulates health services from politics.

“For the 2013 additional, PDAF-sourced funds, while we understand the need still for medical assistance through the set-up voucher’s system, DoH could also use the funds to restore basic health systems at least in the Yolanda-stricken areas that could provide more health services for the survivors,” Fabros added.

Access to health services is a right and it is the state’s obligation to do so. Traditional politicians have no business using need for medical assistance as a ticket to buy votes and make people dependent on their bleeding hearts. Clearly, the fight against PDAF is a battle half-won for health advocates because the biggest chunk of the pork barrel remains intact. Because it has opened more spaces for meaningful participation, this is now the best time to influence public health policy and budgeting.

The ABI-Health Cluster is composed of 62 member organizations advocating for Universal Health Care. It is one of the clusters of ABI along with Education, Agriculture, Social Protection, Environment and Persons with Disabilities Clusters. It is attached to Social Watch Philippines (SWP), a network of a hundred nongovernment organizations that, for eight years, has been successfully pushing for increases in the national budgets for social development, called for the realignment of P25 Billion allotted to the unconstitutional Priority Development Assistance Funds (PDAF) to national government agencies’ programs to help victims of disasters and prevent more tragedies caused by super typhoons and other calamities.

ALTERNATIVE BUDGET INITIATIVE (ABI) – HEALTH

Press Release
25 November 2013

Contact Persons:
Jofti Villena, Sarilaya, +63949.525.3494 (Media Liaison)
ABI Health Cluster: (632) 9273319, abihealth@gmail.com

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[Statement] A fight against an entire system of corruption and political patronage -#ScrapPork Network

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#ScrapPork Network Responds to President Benigno S. Aquino III’s October 30, 2013 Address to the Nation

In his Address to the Nation, the President presented the DAP, or the Disbursement Acceleration Program, as an expression of ‘Tuwid na Daan’. He also expressed displeasure at persons who, he said, criticized him unfairly and maliciously in relation to the pork barrel issue, and who called him names such as Pork Barrel King.

scrap pork network

The #ScrapPork Network (SPN) has consistently taken the position that the pork barrel issue is not about personalities per se. As we in SPN have repeatedly and clearly proclaimed, this is NOT a fight against just one person. Neither is the solution in the hands of a single person only. It is an all-encompassing concern for all citizens of this country which necessitate fighting against an entire system of corruption and political patronage.

We acknowledge the efforts of government at proposing changes in the budget process and the public finance system, and at investigating and holding persons liable for the massive pork barrel scam. We also acknowledge the achievements that our country has gained in the arena of international political economy. But these are not enough.

A systemic flaw in governance requires a systemic response. The pork barrel system has long plagued our institutions to the detriment of the entire citizenry. Nothing and no one are spared from the corrupting effects of the pork barrel system. It is therefore a challenge to the President that while he does not solely hold the solution to this systemic problem, he is in the best position to lead the nation out of this rut.

If he truly meant what he said about guiding the people towards the tuwid na daan, then, Mr. President, the pork barrel system is blocking the way. Join the people in destroying this barrier.

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#ScrapPork Network Unity Statement & sign-up form: http://scrapporknetwork.com/scrappork-network-unity-statement/

#ScrapPork Network’s 8 Concrete Calls to the Government and to the People
http://scrapporknetwork.com/8-concrete-calls-to-the-government-and-to-the-people/

http://scrapporknetwork.com/scrappork-network-responds-to-president-benigno-s-aquino-iiis-october-30-2013-address-to-the-nation/

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[Statement] You miss the point, Mr. President, pork is essentially patronage, not only fund misuse -Kilusang #KonTRAPOrk

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You miss the point, Mr. President, pork is essentially patronage, not only fund misuse

President Aquino’s televised address to the nation last night, October 30, 2013 on the issue of pork is a big disappointment.

P-Noy’s defense of the the Disbursement Acceleration Program ( DAP ) only shows that the President misses the essential point about the pork barrel issue – essential to transparent, accountable and honest governance. And that is – that pork, whether congressional or presidential- is a tool for patronage politics that breeds corruption and perpetuates elite dynasties in power.

KonTRAPOrk logo1 small

We have no dispute with the need for the Executive to have a level of discretionary funds for contingencies, emergencies and disaster relief. However, there should be clear parameters in the amounts and how they are going to be spent. This should make the use and the auditing that follows less vulnerable to manipulation.

To attribute the many-sided and enlightening public discussion on DAPas the handiwork of those guilty of pocketing hundreds of millions, even billions of pesos of congressional pork , is as misleading as if not more than the attempts of congressional thieves to confuse the issues and muddle accountabilities.

The call to bring to justice all those who misused PDAF and other pork has always accompanied the demand to abolish all pork. That has been resounding from Luneta to Edsa to Makati to the increasing number of local assemblies and protest marches throughout the country. What concerns all is that justice may be thwarted in the labyrinth of the judicial system and the horse-trading between Malacanang and Congress.

What we expected from P-Noy last night was a list of needed reforms in the public finance system of the country, beginning with the elimination of all pork What we got was a shrouded defense of pork.
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Press Statement of KILUSANG KONTRAPORK with FREEDOM FROM DEBT COALITION
In Response to Pres. Benigno Simeon C. Aquino III’s Address to Nation
(during the primetime telecast on October 30, 2013)

Follow and Like #KonTRAPOrk @https://www.facebook.com/KonTRAPOrk

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[Press Release] Workers voice stand against pork barrel, patronage politics in Ayala rally -PM

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Workers voice stand against pork barrel, patronage politics in Ayala rally

The labor group Partido ng Manggagawa (PM) said that the Million People March Part 2 in Ayala today will be an opportunity for workers to “register their voice against the pork barrel and patronage politics.” “Both the venue and protest date are significant to workers. The Ayala district is home to at least one million blue and white collar job workers. Beginning today workers in NCR are due to receive a P10 crumb from the new Wage Order,” stated PM Chair Renato Magtubo.

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Insisting that “Through the system of withholding taxes on our salaries and wages, and VAT on the goods and services we buy, workers do not only pay the right amount of taxes on time, we also disproportionately provide a greater share of our income to the national treasury,” the group expected Makati employees and workers to participate actively in the protest.

Magtubo said workers are enraged at how billions of pesos of taxes that were paid out of workers’ productivity are appropriated by corrupt politicians among themselves. “The new economic formula called Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), since illegal, is nothing but contraband smuggled into the pockets of lawmakers for a special job well done,” said Magtubo, referring to the additional allocation to lawmakers on top of their Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) after the impeachment of former Chief Justice Renato Corona.

The labor leader and former party-list representative added that DAP, as explained by Malacanang, is a stimulant for ‘miscarriage’ and not for ‘growth’ since its implementation is worse than the PDAF. “The best thing it was able to achieve was boost the spending spree or personal savings of politicians not the purchasing power of ordinary workers,” Magtubo concluded.

PM is advocating the rechanneling of funds freed by the abolition of pork barrel to universal social protection such as universal healthcare, mass housing, public education, public employment, climate programs, and other services. Magtubo appealed to anti-pork protesters “Not to stop at abolition and push for an alternative fund distribution system in which social services will be as accessible as a right and not subject to the patronage of politicians. The anti-pork protest should develop into a movement for universal social protection and also converge with the anti-epal, anti-trapo and anti-dynasty advocacies of the last elections. Such is a roadmap towards lasting political change in our country.”

Upon its issuance last month, PM described the P10 wage order an insult and a classic case of bigay-bawi since its value eventually eroded by the impending MRT rate hike, increase in price of rice, and the looming power and water rates increases. Amidst the backdrop of protruding corruption scandals in the highest levels of government, Magtubo said, “the workers’ need to deliver its strongest condemnation of this system: Enough of this kind of rule!”

PRESS RELEASE
Partido ng Manggagawa
4 October 2013
Contact: Renato Magtubo @ 09178532905

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