Understanding the Pork Barrel

(with apologies to Prospero Nograles and Edcel Lagman , authors of a 2008 paper 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 government spending for localized projects secured solely or primarily 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 that it is seldom balanced (leading and lagging sectors is the outcome)
Economic growth does not spread smoothly across space; hierarchies and spatial disparities are inevitable and reflect a dynamic system Economic density and concentration drive economic growth of a local economy and a national economy Locally, increasing concentration is manifest in urbanization; nationally, in the emergence of leading areas

Although economic growth may be uneven across a nation, nothing precludes the geographic convergence of living standards To enable this, promoting economic integration is critical (the aim of economic integration is to reduce the distance of people, especially the poor, from economic opportunities, wherever they may be found).
policies to ensure access to basic services irrespective of location and enable fluid land markets, laying a neutral foundation for possible urbanization policies to help people/firms reduce their distance to density facilitate mobility - allowing the benefits of density to be more widely shared.
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However, implicit government policy has historically tended toward dispersion rather than integration.
Typically invoked in the pursuit of balanced growth or an equitable distribution of growth, - which most equate with spatially uniform growth

This is well-intended but misguided. The premature spreading out of economic activity, such as when production is pushed to lagging areas, inhibits agglomeration economies, discouraging the very enterprise that policymakers hope to promote

This bias is discernible in the manic proliferation of airports, seaports, special zones, without regard for scale economies
87 airports, many within a twohour 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)
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Attempts to disperse industry and generate economic mass across regions have largely failed
Regional agro-industrial centers in the 1980s. APECO and other freeports

Performance of freeports, BOI, and PEZA 1996-2012

consistent with international experience

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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 development significance - waiting sheds, entrance arches, multi-purpose pavements - dotting towns and cities

The pork barrel institutionalizes divide-by-N at all levels

Divide-by-N results from a system where the bulk of revenues are collected nationally and only subsequently redistributed to local governments using rigid formulas Politicians are left to prove their worth by finding ways to channel part of what is left in the common fund back to their constituents in the form of projects
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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 (Zamboanga Sibugay, Saranggani); some cities are a curiosity (Puerto Princesa) One form of mitosis removing highly urbanized cities from the authority of provinces where they are located - is particularly perverse as it penalizes a province which demonstrates urbanization and agglomeration.

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Benefits of the Pork Barrel (Nominal)

individual members of Congress, far more than the President and their congressional colleagues, are likely to be knowledgeable about the needs of their respective constituents and the priority to be given each project.
Comment: But the local development councils, in which the Congressperson is a member, already has a development plan and investment program, which contains a master list of projects and priorities of the community. Collective wisdom trumps individual wisdom.

Benefits of Pork Barrel (Nominal)

the relatively small projects implemented under the PDAF complement and link the national development goals to the countryside and grassroots as well as to depressed areas which are overlooked by central agencies which are preoccupied with mega-projects Comment: It may be true that the central agencies overlook small projects, but the provincial and municipal and barangay agencies certainly dont but the latter are all too often 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 can control the legislature and bend it to his will (by releasing or withholding the funds) It is the means by which the legislator can assure his victory (and/or that of his family) in elections. Comment: these benefits accrue to the socalled servants of the people, not to the people themselves.

Costs of Pork Barrel

Opportunity cost of the projects foregone projects with greater economic/social rates of 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, projects that 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 highly irregular:

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) directly associating any Member of Congress to a serious abuse, misuse and/or infraction in the utilization and implementation of the much-maligned congressional funds. Nograles, Lagman, in Understanding the Pork Barrel