Hunger in the midst of an orgy of spending

By Jose Ma. Montelibano – INQUIRER.net

THERE have been a number of exciting and controversial news lately. I am personally affected by some of them, especially reports on the latest survey results from SWS and Pulse Asia showing the dangerous slide of Noynoy Aquino. I have much I want to say about how concerted attacks on the presidential front runner and the massive spending on television commercials have finally cracked his solid lead.

Villar made great political capital of the fact that he came from the poor. Of course, that does not answer why his neighborhood remained poor while he became one of the richest Filipinos today. In one year of advertising conditioning the mind of Filipinos that he is pro-poor by being born poor, the hungry and the rest of Class E have pinned their hopes on him over his rivals. Of course, it helps that his opponents lacked the will to attack an impression which may be more hollow than true, or lacked the resources to do so.

International agencies which include the World Bank have estimated that one third of the national budget is lost to corruption. That means P500 million is stolen in a P1.5 trillion budget. Who makes the budget and allocate to themselves their pork barrel funds but congressmen and senators who are in the majority party? Who have been the Speakers of the House and Senate Presidents who scrutinized and approved the budgets, and who retained the power to have oversight powers over the rightful spending of the Executive Branch?

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