Bridge too sparse

When last week our leader Benigno Simeon (a.k.a. BS) inaugurated a simple bridge too far from Malacañang, his boys in the Palace heralded the event as proof of the purity and sacredness of the DAP—the “disbursement acceleration program.”

Named after his father, the martyred former Senator Benigno Aquino Jr., the bridge for one should boost the economies of all three large northern regions of the country, at least according to the Palace spin.

To top it all, the Aquino (Part II) administration sourced part of the funding—some P145 million out of the P600 million cost of the project—from the DAP, which by the way the Supreme Court already declared as unconstitutional.

There. The Palace produced indisputable proof that all the P150 billion involved in the three-year existence of the DAP—or it could be P200 billion or even P250 billion, because nobody really could say—were public funds well-spent.

It might be true that the 360-meter P600-million Ninoy Aquino Bridge in Tuao town in Cagayan province, or for that matter any bridge in the remotest areas of the country, could help ease somewhat the transport of goods and people in those parts.

Still, it was just one bridge, and the business community has been saying forever that this country had needed several hundreds of bridges since the beginning of time. What could it be then? Just one bridge too sparse?

Anyway, business groups have been pointing out that, in terms of infrastructure, this country ranked rather pathetically in the most watched economic competitive index in the world, the one done by the World Economic Forum.

By the way, the Palace under the Aquino (Part II) administration has been citing the WEF competitiveness index as indubitable proof of the major accomplishments of our leader BS.

Aside from that P600-million bridge in Cagayan Valley, as business group would put it, this country also needs roads, modern seaports and airports, post-harvest facilities, school buildings, hospitals and decent mass transit systems in all urban centers.

Yet, to the boys in the Palace, that one single short bridge in Cagayan Valley—one out of the hundreds that we desperately needed—was the very redemption of the controversial DAP, billed as a mere economic pump-priming program of our leader, BS.

No, sir, the DAP had nothing to do with politics! So be it.

But press statements from the Palace even went into details on the benefits that the one singular bridge could give to the northern regions, such as the cut in travel time from four to two hours from one specific spot to another. Such minute details!

But of course, if the Palace propaganda machinery could do some thorough research on time travel and such, it nevertheless forgot to say anything about the volume of traffic in the road network around the bridge.

As we know, in any infrastructure project, the volume of traffic would always be the most crucial factor in the “cost-benefit” analysis. Basta—the bridge would bring nothing short of an economic miracle for the northern part of the country!

Really now. And so that was probably the reason why it took our government almost 50 years to build the bridge! It was not top priority, perhaps because the volume of traffic could hardly justify in the past the investment of hundreds of millions.

You see, from what I gathered, the administration pursued the construction of the bridge mainly upon intense lobbying done by some politico who was rather “close” to the current administration.

In short, it was all about political connections all over again, reinforcing the suspicion in business that the DAP was nothing but pork barrel disguised as an economic program, with the unequivocal blessings of our leader, BS, at that!

And so, ladies and gentlemen, the bridge project was precisely an example of the main criticism in the business community against the DAP: That the releases from the hundreds of billions of pesos in public funds reeked of dirty politics.

What were the criteria again for the release of billions of pesos of our tax money for just about any program endorsed by “friendly” lawmakers, which reportedly got about P15 billion, or the releases to “well-selected” LGUs, which amounted to a whopping P30 billion?

To think, based on the statements from the Palace, construction of that one solitary bridge originally was proposed way back in 1968, and it was only under our leader BS that the government could allot the P600 million for its construction.

The message was something like this: Look, mga bossing ko, only the Aquino (Part II) administration was determined enough to pursue the project, some 50 years after it was first proposed, and the country was lucky to have DAP as the source of funds.

If the administration really considered this one odd bridge named after the father of our leader, BS, as “top priority,” thus needing the DAP for it to happen, why did the administration forget to put it in the yearly budget all this time, and it needed to steal P145 million from the DAP?

The way that the Palace spin went, it was as if we had only the DAP to thank for the one and only bridge, because the DPWH obtained P145 million of its P600-million cost through the DAP.

And so the P145 million in DAP funds used to augment the budget for the bridge was the absolute proof that the P140 billion involved DAP—or P200 billion or P250 billion—were all clean.

Like it or not, a good part of the DAP was nothing but pork barrel, and thus the program also fragmentized whatever meager funding that the government could allocate in its yearly budget for much needed infrastructure.

Year in and year out, some 85 to 90 percent of the budget would actually go to maintenance and salaries, those usual items that should keep the government running and less than 10 percent of the budget could be invested in infrastructure.

In the business community, precisely, our tax money allotted for “pork barrel” over the years could have been pooled for some critical infrastructure projects, perhaps prioritizing those that could raise the quality of life of the hapless people of this country.

For what was P145 million that the Aquino (Part II) administration juggled in the budget and moved to Cagayan Valley bridge project but only about 1 percent or much less of the DAP, depending on what the total amount of the DAP would turn out to be.

Okay, through the one bridge too sparse somewhere up there in the north, the administration accounted for 1 percent of the DAP funds, the question would remain: What happened to the rest of it, the more than P130 billion or P200 billion or P250 billion?

With all the noise about the DAP, it was a mystery that the independent constitutional body COA—the Commission on Audit—should remain silent, except to say that it conducted audits on some milk procurement project of a certain foundation.

At this point, without the proper accounting of all the billions that the administration spent in the name of DAP, we could only expect the public, including the business sector, to consider the DAP as nothing but wasted money.