Members of Kapederasyon, a national sectoral organization of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders (LGBT), affixed their signatures to the peoples’ initiative to abolish all forms of “pork barrel” and signify their unity with the number of Filipinos dissenting the perpetration of corruption in government.
Kapederasyon expressed its resistance to the perpetuation of the pork barrel system that its members describe as “lantarang pangmamating sa kaban ng LGBT at sambayanan (blatant theft from the coffers of the nation).”
“The double standard of the Aquino administration is too brazen for it to evade the observation of Filipino LGBTs that the ‘daang matuwid clique’ (righteous/straight path clique) prosecutes its political adversaries by drumbeating on the PDAF while concealing its own plunders through the DAP,” stated Kapederasyon spokesperson Corky Hope Marañan.
Marañan added that a growing number of LGBTs view both PDAF and DAP the most powerful form of patronage politics and are therefore aware that Malacañang’s 2015 National Expenditure Program (NEP) retains hundreds of billions of lump-sum discretionary funds concealed in other names but undoubtedly remain the presidential pork barrel.
“Our elected officials have not only failed to promote the people’s interests; they have betrayed the public trust by perpetuating the pork barrel system,” Marañan said. “However the presidential pork barrel is described in the 2015 budget, may it be Bottom-Up Budgeting (BUB) and Grassroots Participatory Budgeting (GPB), these redefinition is but a blatant scheme to perpetuate the pork barrel system and a detestable bid to circumvent the Supreme Court’s ruling on the unconstitutionality of the DAP.”
In an official statement, Kapederasyon described the perpetration of the presidential pork barrel as “a flagrant betrayal of public trust and the time has therefore come for the Filipino people, including us LGBTs, to take matters into our hand and abolish the pork barrel system ourselves.”
Kapederasyon said that “in whatever name it is hooded with, nothing good had the pork barrel delivered to the poor LGBT and Filipino people. Why? Because for us, the perpetuation of the pork barrel system means the perpetuation of the unemployment, denial of the right to education, of the skyrocketing prices of rice, vegetables, and other basic commodities, power rates, transport fares, oil price and other oppressive and unjust systems that the Aquino administration undoubtedly continue to cast a blind eye to.
“The millions of pesos stolen through PDAF have deprived marginalized groups like the LGBT community of funds that should have gone to genuine public service projects that will benefit them like quality health services roads and bridges, school buildings, and public markets, while the billions of peoples’ money plundered through the DAP could have steeply reduced the spread of HIV/AIDS that has locally extended to an epidemic proportion.”
Kapederasyon is launching a massive nationwide signature crusade in the grassroots by bringing the People’s Initiative petition in the barangays.
“Tama na! Sobra na ang pang-e-echos at pagmamating sa atin. Kaya mga girl, boy, bakla, tomboy, go go go na tayo sa mga barangay! Push natin ang signature drive para matsugi ang pork barrel to a bonggang-bonggang level!
