Internal Functional Differentiation of the Political System
Indeed, identifying
what projects to be implemented by the executive branch as a role of legislators
is arguable. Being representatives of their respective localities, they are
undoubtedly more sensitive to the needs of their area than the national
government. However, does knowledge necessarily follow sensitivity? A boy scout
may be sensitive to the needs of the wounded, but does he have the in depth
knowledge a trained medical man can provide? In this light, the capacity of
legislators to identify the different and specific needs of their localities
becomes highly questionable. Legislators are dominantly lawyers, businessmen or
media people by profession. Given such demographics, does a legislator
have the necessary expert knowledge of a doctor to identify who needs immediate
medical attention? Or that of an agriculture expert to know which fertilisers
are best? Or that of urban planners to know where infrastructures must be strategically
built? While a representative’s sensitivity may help in identifying projects in
the local arena, they are not the most equipped to carry out such a function.
It is for this reason that our political system, borrowed from arguably the
most modern state in the world, provides for the separation of the legislative
and executive branch; each branch has differentiated functions that only they
can carry out most effectively. As Niklas Luhmann, a scholar of modernity,
asserts; politics is functionally differentiated from administration. The
administration is run by professionals who “specialize in elaborating and
issuing binding decisions that satisfy certain requirements.” Their function is
to formulate and implement projects and programs, given their trained
professionals. On the other hand, politics, which is the sphere of
representatives, deals with forming political support for such programs and
decisions. When functions are mixed up, systems fail to effectively respond to
the complexities of their environment and thus, incapacitate themselves to
carry their supposed function and risk the breakdown of the system. Such is the
threat that a pork barrel system poses; legislators cannot effectively
legislate when they are concerned with the executive's function. Further, when
they attempt at operating the function of the executive, they produce results
that are mediocre due to their lack of necessary specialisations and skills. Therefore,
it is not the function of legislators to identify and much more, meddle with
the implementation of projects; it is the function of the administration or the
executive department who has the professionals with expert knowledge and the capacity
to implement these. National government, through grassroots democratic
mechanisms, must coordinate with its bureaucracies, local government units and
their development councils who have the sensitivity, knowledge and capacity to
identify and implement programs and projects in localities.
Pork Barrel Politics and
Executive-Legislative Relations
When President
Aquino called for the abolition of the pork barrel system, he meant to abolish
the Priority Development Assistant Fund (PDAF). The pork barrel system will
continue to exist, albeit stricter mechanisms and safeguards compared to that
of the PDAF. The move is quite commendable; and to a certain extent, may
drastically lessen or even eradicate corruption entirely in the use of the pork
barrel. The pork barrel system has been popularly framed as a corruption issue.
But this is not its only anomaly. Spotlight should now be focused on it being
an issue of executive-legislative relations. The new pork barrel system
provides that Congress will still identify projects, although this time through
line-items that will be deliberated upon as part of the General Appropriations
Act or the national budget. Here, another problem arises. As long as
legislators are given prerogative to identify where to use funds and thus to a
certain extent, craft part of the budget, they compromise
their intended function in the budgetary process as fiscalisers. The executive can then use this as a tool
to keep Congress as a mere rubber stamp. In this way, even under
the new and supposedly stricter pork barrel system, Congress is still subject
to executive domination. This further de-incentivises the formation of stronger
political parties and encourages a weak opposition bent on the will of the
government of the day. Ultimately, a pork barrel system, even with
zero-incidence of corruption, subverts the check and balances a democratic
system like ours provides. These institutions stay when governments come and
go. In the hands of a morally upright President, the pork barrel may be a tool
to expedite well-meaning programs and projects that are often stuck in
government gridlock. However, in the hands of a corrupt president, it becomes a
gun pointed at anyone who dares to stand on his way.
The pork barrel
system, under any other name, can be dismissed as irrational. When
representatives are given undue discretion in the identification of projects,
funds become highly susceptible to corruption and both legislation and such
projects turn out mediocre. When the legislative is given executive-like
functions, they compromise their role as fiscalisers of the executive. When the
institutional arrangement of checks and balances are subverted, the public is
at the mercy of whoever is in power. With or without its corruption, the pork
barrel and its irrationality have no place in a modern political system. Indeed,
the hallmark of a great president is not in his use of discretionary funds to
bribe the legislative into cooperation, but it lies in his negotiating skills
that follow democratic institutions to direct the country to greater heights.
Now, by this standard, one begins to question—how great of a president is PNoy?
It is high time he proves himself worthy of high approval ratings and abolishes the pork barrel in its
entirety.
