Modus operandi behind pork barrel thievery explained! #porkbarrel #scrappork
Only public officials are accountable for the government funds they handle. Napoles and all the NGOs are private entities that do not have public accountability. The moment public fund is transferred into the hands of any private entity or individual, the money ceases to be public in nature and the official who participated in or caused the transfer is the last stop on public accountability.
The government is not prohibited from giving donations to a private entity or even individual as long as the donation is justifiable, and the government entity, unit or official can make an accounting or liquidation of the donation based on the principles of public accountability. Any public money given to any private entity without anything in exchange or without any valuable consideration in return is, for all intents and purposes, a donation by the government.
There is no way for government funds to be lawfully donated unless the recipient is a needy end-user. This way, the government fund (that is at all times attached with public accountability) can be justifiably accounted for by the government official who caused the donation resulting in the disposition of the public fund.
The practice of giving public fund in a lump sum manner to any NGO, whether related or not to Napoles, and assigning and/or transferring the accounting or liquidation thereof (as if it is possible to assign and/or transfer public accountability on public funds) cannot be justified by the official who caused the donation. Any money or fund in the hands of the government at all times carry with it the public accountability of the official entrusted with the money or fund, and there shall be no exception to this fundamental rule. For any donation or grant to an NGO or any private entity to be valid, the recipient NGO must be a needy end-user, not a "government trustee" or "custodian" that can decide on how to manage and disburse our public funds. The public accountability clause of the Constitution shall be rendered useless if this scheme were allowed. What the government officials involved in the pork barrel scam are now trying to do is give legitimacy to this scheme, thereby side stepping the Public Accountability clause by making it appear that the recipient NGOs are the entities publicly accountable for government funds that they handled, managed and disbursed.
This does not mean though that Napoles, assuming she pocketed all the allocations to her NGOs, is not publicly accountable. She is accountable not pursuant to the Public Accountability clause but under our laws against graft, corruption, unexplained wealth and plunder. The tracking, tracing and accounting of all public funds disposed under the pork barrel system need not go to the accounting and liquidation they now require of the recipient NGOs, as they are not the real culprits accountable for the stolen or wasted public funds. Napoles as conspirator and principal by direct participation or indispensable cooperation might be equally guilty with government officials in the plundering of our wealth, but insofar as the public accountability of the pork barrel funds is concerned, Napoles is merely a "fence" (as in Theft and Robbery "fence") and not the person who directly stole from our coffers and cannot possibly be the "mastermind" as she has no control over the management and disbursement of public funds. It is actually unthinkable that a private entity could "steal" billions of government money in several instances without the direct supervision of the government officials publicly accountable for the funds.
If our lawmakers and implementing agencies should insist that the NGOs stole our money, then it is an admission that they were not qualified and competent to handle public funds. And considering the magnitude and frequency of how our public funds are wasted and lost through the pork barrel system, these officials have now opted to try and make it appear that they were simply "grossly negligent" in the disposition and disbursement of people's money.
Even that is totally inexcusable and unforgivable.
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