MANILA (Mindanao Examiner / Aug. 27, 2014) – More and more overseas Filipino workers are supporting calls to totally abolish presidential and congressional pork barrel funds.
This after various groups and organizations and citizens launched a campaign in the country for the passage of a law that will criminalize the use of pork barrel funds.
In Saudi Arabia, the Migrante-Middle East is one of the prime movers of this campaign and is steadily gaining huge support from OFWs there.
John Leonard Monterona, Migrante-Middle East regional coordinator, based in Riyadh, said OFWs who are bonafide overseas absentee voters can also sign up for the People’s Initiative bill that aims to institutionally put an end to pork barrel allocations in the national budget of the government.
“The mere fact that an OFW is a registered OAV, he or she can sign up the People’s Initiative,” Monterona said, adding there is no legal or statutory prohibition for an overseas absentee voter to sign up for the bill.
Monterona said OFWs who are not overseas absentee voters, but are registered voters in their legislative district, can also sign up for the said bill during their annual vacation back home.
“We are also calling our fellow OFWs to urge their kin in the Philippines to sign up the People’s Initiative bill because this is the concrete manifestation of our rejection of the graft-ridden pork barrel that only perpetuates political patronage and dirty politics of bureaucrat-capitalists,” he said.
20