ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Aug. 26, 2013) – Dozens of websites and portals of various government agencies in the Philippines had been hacked Monday by a group called “Anonymous Philippines” in protest to the controversial pork barrel fund provided to lawmakers.
Several websites have been restored, but many are still down and inaccessible. Those that had been hacked were left with a warning and obviously the target of the message is President Benigno Aquino, whose pork barrel remains at his disposal.
Aquino, who previously rejected calls to abolish PDAF, now vowed to act on the pork barrel fund following threats of civil unrest from various civil society groups and the influential Catholic Church.
“We appreciate the fact that you have now responded to the public clamor to abolish the PDAF, however the alternative package of still allowing the congressmen and senators to identify sponsored projects to be funded, albeit as line items on the annual budget, continues to leave money with grasps of conniving and corrupt public officials, in effect, this merely shifted the timeline upon when these projects are identified and approved. Therefore, the pork barrel remains. We pursue our call to you to completely abolish the pork barrel system,” Anonymous Philippines said in a message left on hacked government agencies.
Filipinos, disgruntled over the pork barrel scandal, held simultaneous rallies in various parts of the country to denounce the corruption in the House of Representatives. Each members of Congress get P70 million and senators P200 million annually which they use for small development projects in their district.
But the PDAF is also the source of corruption where some lawmakers allegedly get as much as 50% kickbacks on projects, mostly covered courts, road asphalt overlay, and computer set donation for schools, and medicines for village health programs, fertilizers and pesticides for farmers, among others.
The Department of Budget and Management has posted on its website a list of where lawmakers – congressmen and senators – spent their pork barrel fund.
The report – which is accessible on this URL http://www.pdaf.dbm.gov.ph – included all projects where legislators channelled their pork barrel fund. It included the nature of the project, its recipient, implementing unit, the release date and the exact amount disbursed.
DBM records show that in 2012, members of the House of Representatives and the Senate received a total of P24.237 billion in PDAF releases. This year, members of Congress have so far received a total of P11.584 billion in pork barrel funds. (Mindanao Examiner)
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