Transactional politics lives again
10/10/2010 The “boss ko kayo” (you’re my boss) principle of Noynoy appears to have been applied to the 278 or so members of the House of Representatives in striking a deal for the 2011 budget, that, despite Noy’s incessant harping about his administration’s commitment not to waste a single centavo of public money, has been compromised with the Speaker, with blessings from Malacañang, divvying up lump sums on top of the priority development assistance fund (PDAF) or more bluntly, pork.
Thus,
while now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Arroyo was all black and blue from the bashing that Noynoy dealt her in his 100-day report, which was mainly a continuation of his bravado about change since the campaign period, she in turn was rewarded with a healthy P2.2 billion in pork to keep her in the pink of happy health.
Also apportioned out were Road Users Tax (RUT) proceeds that would give each congressman except for party-list representatives P25 million despite Noynoy and his allies hitting the practice in the past of using RUT money as political doleouts.
The fact that the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has agreed to the financial packages for House members in the 2011 budget showed Noynoy’s imprimatur on it.
The
pork barrel bonanza was in exchange for Congress letting go of the questionable P21 billion cash transfer fund in the 2011 budget to be administered by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and other Palace lump sum appropriations.
Speaker Feliciano Belmonte had committed to pass the proposed cash transfer allocation without any cuts. Despite the noble nature of the cash transfer program that is to provide the poorest Filipinos with government assistance provided that they meet set criteria such as the schooling of their children, it has been proven to be easily turned into bribes for the incumbent dominant political party.
The conditional cash transfers have always been used for election purposes — made out to be a big part of the presidential largess — mostly to get the votes.
And in the hands of Dinky Soliman, one can be certain that politics is at the core of it, not the poverty angle.
Recall a lachrymose Dinky, admitting cutting off her ties with Gloria, because she could no longer bear to see what she had become: One who used the poor to buy their political support for her then patron, Gloria.
No doubt, she will also be using the poor and the cash doleouts to buy political support for her now patron, Noynoy Aquino and some of his allies — of the Balay Puti variety.
The next national elections will be in 2013 when the cash transfer program would have taken a strong hold over their recipients who, in turn, will not have second thoughts about their political preference at the polling booth.
Aside from the bravura about walking the straight path, there is nothing now or forthcoming that Noynoy’s administration is likely to achieve in terms of improving the lives of Filipinos. His Palace minions have been stressing the short time that Aquino has spent as president for his strings of failures but what Filipinos are not seeing is the potential for improvement.
Thus, what is being highlighted is the 71 percent or thereabouts satisfaction rating on Noynoy, which is also an old figure since the latest surveys showed that the approval rating had dropped to somewhere around 60 percent.
The last administration had developed an expertise on the field of transactional politics that was effective in plugging the void in terms of mandate on Gloria.
With Gloria now in Congress, Noynoy appears ready to give Gloria, who remains Noynoy’s most prominent rival in the House, a dose of her own medicine.
Gloria would only be too happy to oblige and she would likely marshall her allies which make up the dominant minority to let Noynoy’s own pork to pass Congress.
Gloria, without saying much, has given Noynoy a free lecture on the advantages of transactional politics and Noynoy, just like the old times at Ateneo, is an attentive student.
Noynoy had said Gloria was a “brilliant teacher.”
It seems he was not joking.