The Kaya Natin! Movement for Good Governance and Ethical Leadership expresses its utmost condemnation of the recent revelations concerning the P 10 Billion Pork Barrel Scam that has allegedly benefited the family of Janet Lim Napoles and several Congressmen and Senators. This recent expose is all the more appalling given the most recent SWS survey, which shows that more than 22% of Filipino families continue to experience involuntary hunger each day.
P 10 Billion is no laughing matter. This amount, when used in the right way, can help provide the following to our less-privileged brothers and sisters:
- 50,000 new homes for our informal settlers
- 40,000 full college scholarships for financially underprivileged students
- 4 million families covered with PhilHealth Insurance
Sadly, instead of benefiting ordinary Filipinos, these public funds have been used for the personal benefit of only a few influential and powerful families in our country.
As such, KN strongly supports the call for an immediate, impartial investigation that would allow the Filipino people to uncover the truth behind this scam. We urge the leadership of the House of Representatives, as well as our other Congressmen, to support Cong. Leni Robredo’s call for greater transparency and accountability regarding this issue.
We also urge the leadership of the Senate to ensure an impartial investigation into this issue and not let its own personal relationships within the institution be a hindrance in ferreting out the truth. This will only show that the Senate is serious in pushing for good governance, even if it means holding its own members accountable for their misdeeds.
We also continue to support the ongoing efforts of the Department of Justice (DoJ) and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in continuing its investigation on this issue. We hope that after their thorough investigation, necessary charges can be filed immediately against those found to have misused funds that should have been used to provide basic services to every Filipino.
We urge the leaders of our House of Representatives, Senate, and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to immediately discuss the development of a more transparent and accountable system that would allow the general public to easily scrutinize the PDAF allocations made by our government leaders.
Finally, to help ensure that this does not happen again in the future, we strongly urge our lawmakers to immediately ratify the Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill, which will help in ensuring that there is greater transparency and accountability in our government dealings and transactions. A strong FOI Bill can be the ordinary Filipino’s weapon against those who continue to perpetuate graft and corruption in our government.
