The Irrationality of the Pork Barrel

In a recent report, Senate President Franklin Drilon was quoted to have rhetorically questioned the function of Congress if the pork barrel system would be abolished, “what will happen if we will not take a direct hand (in the identification of projects)? Let’s just abolish Congress then.” Several congressmen and senators share similar positions; national government cannot possibly know the needs of every locality and as representatives, they are more sensitive to the needs of our respective constituencies. Is such an assertion warranted? 

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.