Where did all the pork go?

Vice-Governor Julius Caesar Herrera says this question remains unanswered, fuelling speculations that there is more than meets the eye.

“What is taking them long to answer?” he asked.

The vice-governor had earlier hurled a challenge to the three Boholano solons to identify the projects funded under their pork barrel allocations.

Herrera noted that at the very least, a congressman is entitled to a pork barrel of P70-million a year.

He said that this means that a congressman receives a total of P210-M for a single term.

If a congressman serves for three terms, that would mean a total allocation of P610-M.

“P610-million is a very big amount especially in this time of financial crisis,” he noted.

The vice-governor said the huge amount is enough to turn things around for many towns.

“For instance, if I were congressman, I would allocate P50-M in one year to solve the water problem in Panglao island,” he added.

Herrera said this would be sufficient to solve the problem and ease the inconvenience of the people in the island identified as a premiere tourist destination.

Unfortunately, he said nothing of this sort happened.

Herrera wonders where the pork barrel goes instead.

“We are also surprised why it is very difficult for our congressmen to point to us which projects received funding from their pork barrel,” he added.

The vice-governor said that if he were a congressman, he would not wait for people to demand an accounting but would voluntarily release the list of projects.

Herrera said this becomes more suspicious because there have been reports of projects funded by other sources being claimed by the congressmen.

The vice-governor said he does not believe this is simply a case of an honest mistake because a simple list would be sufficient to identify the projects undertaken by a particular congressman.

Adding more suspicion is the fact that this “mistake” did not happen only once or twice.

“How many projects funded by other congressmen have they claimed as their own? Where are their projects?” the vice-governor asked.

Herrera said the continued refusal of the solos to release their itemized list of projects could lead people to suspect that “something is fishy”.

The vice-governor said that the congressmen themselves will suffer the consequences if they dilly-dally on this.

“They will have no one else to blame except themselves,” he added.