understanding the pork barrel

7/29/2019 Understanding the Pork Barrel

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Understanding the Pork Barrel

(with apologies to Prospero Nograles

and Edcel Lagman , authors of a 2008paper with the same name)



Outline of Presentation

• Pork Barrel Defined

• Growth, Human Development and the Pork

Barrel: the Philippine situation

• Benefits of the Pork Barrel

• Costs of the Pork Barrel



Pork Barrel Defined

• Pork barrel is the appropriation of governmentspending for localized projects secured solely orprimarily to bring money to a representative's

district.• Noun, North American informal

used in reference to the utilization of government funds for projects designed to

please voters or legislators and win votes:

the lesson that power is based on the pork barrel and purchased with patronage



Economic Development and the Pork

Barrel

• A “striking attribute” of economic growth is thatit is seldom balanced (leading and lagging sectorsis the outcome) – Economic growth does not spread smoothly across

space; hierarchies and spatial disparities are inevitableand reflect a dynamic system

– Economic density and concentration drive economicgrowth of a local economy and a national economy

–

Locally, increasing concentration is manifest inurbanization; nationally, in the emergence of leadingareas



Although economic growth may be uneven across a

nation, nothing precludes the geographic convergenceof living standards

policies to ensure access to basic services irrespective of

location and enable fluid land markets, laying a neutralfoundation for possible urbanization

policies to help people/firms reduce their “distance todensity” – facilitate mobility - allowing the benefits of density to be more widely shared.

To enable this, promoting economic integration is

critical (the aim of economic integration is to reducethe distance of people, especially the poor, from

economic opportunities, wherever they may be found).

5



However, implicit government policy has

historically tended toward dispersion ratherthan integration.

Typically invoked in the pursuit of ‘balanced growth’ oran ‘equitable distribution of growth’, - which mostequate with spatially uniform growth

This is well-intended but misguided. The prematurespreading out of economic activity, such as whenproduction is pushed to lagging areas, inhibits

agglomeration economies, discouraging the veryenterprise that policymakers hope to promote

6



This bias is discernible

in the manicproliferation of airports,

seaports, special zones,

without regard for scale

economies• 87 airports, many within a two-

hour ride from each other.

• 140 public seaports, 40 without

any traffic.

• More than 10.64 million ha. in

91% municipalities proposed as

SAFDZs (rendering the approach

useless)7



Attempts to disperseindustry and generate

economic mass across

regions have largely

failed

Regional agro-industrial

centers in the 1980s.

APECO and other freeports

… consistent with

international experience

Performance of freeports, BOI, and PEZA 1996-2012

8



This is the ‘divide-by-N ’ syndrome - the “mechanical

and feckless dissipation of government funds across

localities instead of their rational allocation to where

these might have the most impact”

Fragmentation ... typified by pork-barrel allocations, e.g. bridges

that lead nowhere, dirt roads interrupted occasionally by

concrete paving; half-roofed schoolhouses.

… and pork barrel-like allocations drawn from local development

funds. Hence, “many small projects with little developmentsignificance - waiting sheds, entrance arches, multi-purpose

pavements - dotting towns and cities”

9



The pork barrel institutionalizes ‘divide-by-N’ atall levels

• Divide-by-N results from a system where the bulk

of revenues are collected nationally and onlysubsequently redistributed to local governmentsusing rigid formulas

•

Politicians are left to prove their worth by findingways to channel part of what is left in thecommon fund back to their constituents in theform of projects

10



Divide-by-N also underlies the predilection to

carve out new political units - ‘ political mitosis’

80 provinces - and counting; 143 cities; 1491 municipalities.

Some provinces have the oddest shapes (ZamboangaSibugay, Saranggani); some cities are a curiosity (PuertoPrincesa)

One form of mitosis – removing highly urbanized cities from

the authority of provinces where they are located - isparticularly perverse as it penalizes a province whichdemonstrates urbanization and agglomeration.

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“Benefits” of the Pork Barrel (Nominal)

• “individual members of Congress, far more than

the President and their congressionalcolleagues, are likely to be knowledgeable about

the needs of their respective constituents andthe priority to be given each project.”

– Comment: But the local development councils, inwhich the Congressperson is a member, already has adevelopment plan and investment program, whichcontains a master list of projects and priorities of thecommunity. Collective wisdom trumps individual wisdom.



Benefits of Pork Barrel (Nominal)

“ the relatively small projects implemented under thePDAF complement and link the national development goalsto the countryside and grassroots as well as to depressedareas which are overlooked by central agencies which arepreoccupied with mega-projects”

Comment: It may be true that the central agenciesoverlook small projects, but the provincial and municipal and barangay agencies certainly don’t – but the latter are all toooften ignored, or are not mentioned at all by the member of Congress as having influenced his/her choice of projects.



Benefits of Pork Barrel (Real)

• It is a means by which the executive cancontrol the legislature and bend it to his will(by releasing or withholding the funds)

• It is the means by which the legislator canassure his victory (and/or that of his family) inelections.

Comment: these benefits accrue to the so-called servants of the people, not to the peoplethemselves.



Costs of Pork Barrel

• Opportunity cost of the projects foregone – projects with greater economic/social ratesof return.

– Comment: To reiterate – even were the pork barrel projects completely untainted by corruption,there will still be the problem of inefficiency and waste (e.g., dispersion vs. integration, projects

with very little developmental impact, projectsthat are duplicative or decisions that are better done by existing agencies )



Costs of Pork Barrel

• Massive corruption. – Pork Barrel Funds Appropriated, 2007-2009:

PDAF – P29b; VILP – P51b; Total – P80b

– Pork Barrel Funds Released , 2007-2009:

PDAF and other – P14b; VILP – P102b; Total- P116 b – Pork Barrel Funds Audited by COA (2007-2009):

PDAF and other –P8b; VILP -P33 b; Total – P41b

– Pork Barrel Funds use found to be improper or highlyirregular:

PDAF – 6 b; VILP – P.31b



Famous Last Words

“since the advent of the CDF in 1990 and the

institution of the PDAF in 2000 up to the

present, there has been no post-audit report by

the Commission on Audit (COA) directlyassociating any Member of Congress to a serious

abuse, misuse and/or infraction in the utilization

and implementation of the much-malignedcongressional funds.” Nograles, Lagman, in

“Understanding the Pork Barrel”

understanding the pork barrel

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