A personal computer in every home
I woke up yesterday morning to Kim’s shocked exclamation that Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo was being taken to Leyte.
It was barely 6am, and I had slept a bit late the night before (guilty of watching CSI on DVD), but the news was like a splash of freezing water, fully driving away sleep, jolting me wide awake.
We turned on the telly and there, on GMA 7, was Ka Satur, looking tired and harrassed, but angry and defiant all the same being dragged, pushed and pulled by elements of the Philippine National Police (PNP) into a waiting black van.
I was so angry I started crying. It was impossible to not be angry to see one of the people you respect most in the world being manhandled by the police. But the truth is, what really made me angry the knowledge that if the PNP can do such a thing to an elected legislator, a personality known even in international human rights circles, they can do (and have done and will continue to) worse to Filipinos of much less reknown.
In picketlines, especially in Southern Tagalog, the SWAT and PNP forces even help company security guards and hired thugs attack striking workers with shields and truncheons and teargas.
Seeing Ka Satur being treated like an ordinary criminal was way painful. I would flinch to see Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo treated like that, and that’s Gloria, sinungaling, magnanakaw, mandaraya and mamamatay-tao extraordinaire.
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Ordinary Filipinos get treated like scum by the Philippine government every single day. They are forced to fend for themselves, raise and take care of their families without receiving the slightest support and assistance from the government. They have to beg and grovel at the public assistance offices of the DSWD, their local congressman, the senate, the PCSO for money to buy dextrose and syringes for their loved ones in the severely-congested public hospitals.
The severe problems of hunger, disease, homelessness and joblessness are violations against the rights of Filipinos, and they remain for the most part unresolved to this day. Those in power refuse to wield their authority to uplift the welfare of the people they promised to serve, thinking that by making a few donations for the construction of a waiting shade, a new school building, heck, even the pavement of a new road they have already done their duty. And these officials act like it was their own money that they used! Gad, the way they expect to be thanked; the way they expect to be venerated.
Congressmen agree to support the more infamous of Malacanang’s priority bills (anti-terrorism, oil deregulation, electricity privatization, lateral attrition schemes in government service, expanded value added tax, etc) in exchange for pork barrel, funds they will supposedly use to build public infrastructure in their respective districts. They make it out like they’re being hostaged into voting in favor of Malacanang’s bills because if they don’t, they won’t their SAROs and NCAs, and hence they won’t be able to BUILD anything for their constituents.
It would be funny if it weren’t so tragic — they sacrificed and betrayed the interest of the entire nation just so they can give what their district constituents supposedly need.
I wonder how congressmen would vote if they didn’t receive pork barrel? Would they be less sheeplike to the whims and demands of Malacanang? Would they be more attentive, receptive to the demands of their constituents who demand lower electricity rates (hence fight electricity privatization and the sale of Napocor’s assets), increased allocations for public schools and hospitals; (and cut funding for foreign debt payments and military expenditures) and more spending for agriculture (instead of supporting massive land conversion and open pit mining)?
All pork barrel funds would instead to be added to the allocations for public health, housing and education.
I wonder if politicians would be so eager to hold public office if they didn’t get any monetary compensation and it was illegal to accept any other financial assistance or support from the private sector? Like, say, they would receive P15,000 tops as monthly salary, and their main government function would be to legislate, attend public hearings and congressional investigations. Just that. Would they be less beholden to business interests and landowners (maliban na lang kung land-owners at malaking negosyante din sila)?
The progressive party-lists Bayan Muna, Anakpawis and Gabriela Women’s Party have no problems if the pork barrel is scrapped. The progressive mass movement has survived for three decades without it, utang na loob. Kaya nga katawa-tawa sina Norberto Gonzales for insisting that the congressional funds our party-lists get go directly to the CPPA-NPA-NDF. Do the staff at the office of Speaker Jose de Venecia when handing out the SAROs and NCAs go to, say, Sierra Madre and get a receipt from Roger Rosal? Has Gonzales any idea how these funds are released by the DBM? There is no release of actual cold cash. Everything’s just signed documents, seals and signatures on paper.
It was only in 2001 when the progressive people’s movement directly participated in the legislative system by winning big in the party-lists polls, and when Bayan Muna first came to office, the staff had to do learn everything from scratch, learning one thing at a time, hits and misses galore. Is Gonzales saying that the party-lists actually coerced the DBM into releasing actual money, in bills in, say, thousand peso denominations?
Anyways, it would be a genuine test of commitment if government officials were not allowed to own more assets than a house and lot and a car while they’re in public office. That they would get only maximum P15,000 monthly, and no other allowance. Kung talagang mahusay sila at malapit sa mamamayang pinaglilingkuran nila, they would be FED by their constituents: uulanin ng manok, baboy, isda, gulay, mangga, kamatis, asukal, etc ang mga bahay nila.
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I realize I have pretty naive views when it comes to politics. I don’t care. To me it’s all about fighting for the right of the poor majority (who are also the ones who work their butts off daily to produce freaking everything in society) to live decently and with every opportunity to develop all aspects of their humanity, to cultivate their better and finer aspirations and instincts, and enjoy their lives with their families free from worries of getting kicked out of their house, having their electricity cut off, starving to death or dropping dead from tuberculosis or pneumonia. Anyone who is against this, work against these efforts, is an enemy.
Bill Gates has this slogan at Microsoft: A personal computer in every home.
Why not?
