Part II of the Series,

Reinventing Overseas-Filipino Donations for Philippine-Disaster Victims

E very time there is a calamity in the Philippines, many Overseas-Filipino community organizations and even individual families dip into their pockets and donate sums of hard-earned moneys for the calamity victims. To illustrate: the Philippine Disaster Relief Organization (PeDRO), Inc., of Los Angeles, California, called a fundraising meeting on the first working day (Sept. 28, 2009) -- or just two days -- after the disaster that hit Metro Manila and surrounding provinces. The PeDRO meeting held at the Philippine Consulate General raised then and there approximately six-thousand ($6,000) dollars.

Other Overseas Filipinos do not donate to the PeDRO or any charitable foundation or non-governmental entity (NGO), as they have only enough surplus funds to give to their relatives (dependents) in the homeland.

But consider that each Filipino congressperson receives a pork-barrel allocation of Pesos One-hundred-million. (And there are a minimum of 250 of them, including the party-list members.) At the rate of P40/$1, the pork amounts to Two-million, five-hundred-thousand US dollars per member of the House of Representatives.

Editor’s Note: Each congressperson officially receives annually only Pesos: Seventy-million in pork barrel but Bobby Reyes rounded it off to one-hundred million, as he counted other perks for the legislator’s and his/her staff salaries, travel allowances, local-office rentals and other official expenses, etc.

Each Filipino senator receives per year a pork-barrel allocation of Pesos: Two-hundred-million (or Dollars: Five-million). This amount does not include other perks for staff salaries, travel allowances and other official expenses. (And while there are 24 senators, there are only 23 of them right now, as Sen. Alfredo Lim resigned when he was elected the Mayor of Manila in 2007.)

All in all, the Filipino taxpayers spend per annum Pesos 29.8-billion ($745-million) just for the pork-barrel expenditures of Filipino congresspersons and senators.

So, the PeDRO must raise $6,000 (per event) in four-hundred twenty (420) fundraising drives (assuming it generates that much per fundraiser) to equal the $2.5-million received in pork-barrel funds by a Filipino congressperson in one year. The legislator receives $7.5-million equivalent (in American greenback) for his or her 3-year tenure.

Or to equal the $745-million in Filipino pork, the PeDRO must hold 124,167 fundraisers per year (or 341 fundraising events per day), assuming that it raises $6,000 per fundraising event. Please check my computations and see if I got the figures right.

And the pork-barrel allowances of Filipino legislators are not subject to forensic audit by the Commission on Audit (COA), as we were made to understand by some COA employees.

Should we not demand now for the Philippine government to use first the pork barrel of the members of the Philippine Congress for disaster relief – before it asks donations from Overseas Filipinos? Unless of course, the Arroyo Dispensation and the other Filipino national leaders think that Overseas Filipinos are just suckers. For they believe that suckers are born every minute, to use a cliché, right? # # #

To read Part One of this series, as written by Hector Santos, please click on this link: Reinventing Overseas-Filipino Donations for Philippine-Disaster Victims

Caution: The views and opinions of Bobby Reyes do not reflect necessarily the views and opinions of Hector Santos and/or the other writers and staff of this website.