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Why would anyone want to be President of the Republic of the Philippines?
Would stress and a paltry P60,000 salary be enough to dissuade anyone? Perhaps not. Why would political candidates spend BILLIONS of pesos just to be the most powerful person on the country?
Maybe the pork barrel sounds reasonable. There is an unholy amount of monies at the personal discretion of the chief executive. I’ll show that after the jump…
THE PRESIDENT’S PORK BARREL
According to this source, here’s a listing of the funds which can be disbursed at the discretion of the country’s highest official;
Kindly note that the total is in THOUSANDS OF PESOS. That means that the President has around 59.2 BILLION at his/her disposal. If you look at a 10% rip-off (corruption rate), that’s still a potential take home of around 6 BILLION PESOS for the entire term of office or 1 BILLION for every year of tenure (roughly around 2.7M every day in office).
Whew! That’s massive. You can forget about the 60K monthly salary and give that to your PSG driver in tips, right? According to a simple calculation that I did, the entire salary of the president’s six-year term is only 0.00061% of the pork barrel.
Here’s more. The President DOES NOT NEED to report on how most of these funds were appropriated. The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) says that “Confidential and intelligence funds, along with other discretionary funds, do not undergo the usual auditing procedures.” That simply doesn’t sound right.
So, whoever wins, if this system is still in place, corruption is as easy as pie.
Still believe in their promises?
Vote wisely. Thanks!
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*Image courtesy of quezon.ph
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