Akbayan Rep. Kaka Bag-ao is facing a lot of grilling with her pork, not the barbeque kind but the barrel that supposed to be rolling for the people of Dinagat Island amounting to P140 million pesos.

Bag-ao, a partylist representative who is also from Dinagat Island, was appointed caretaker after its original representative, Ruben Ecleo Jr., was booted from the congressional roster when the Supreme Court affirmed an earlier guilty ruling of the Sandiganbayan regarding the irregularities in several infrastructure projects in San Jose, Surigao del Norte, where Ecleo served three years as mayor from 1991.

Ecleo, who took over the reigns the Philippine Benevolent Missionaries Association Inc. after his father’s death in 1987, was also convicted last year of killing his wife. The alleged cult leader is officially a fugitive with an 18 to 31 year sentence in the slammer waiting and fine of almost 3 million pesos.

So what’s Bag-ao got to do with Ecleo? Nothing. But as caretaker of Ecleo’s district she’s getting a lot of heat coming. The timing of the release of a fund close to P140 million,, or the equivalent of Ecleo’s two-year pork barrel, last December 4 to 19 is being questioned by critics. They harp that the moolah, intended to fund various projects in Dinagat Islands from infrastructure to scholarships and financial assistance, is really in aid of Bag-ao’s election bid. Bag-ao who is a known ally of the administration and was one of the prosecutors in the trial which booted out Renato Corona from the Supreme Court Chief Justice seat, is said to be teaming up with another Ecleo, Vice Governor Jane, to wrest control of the province from the vice gov.’s and the former representative’s mother, Governor Glenda Ecleo.

But DBM Head Butch Abad, the Liberal Party’s former campaign manager, defended Bag-ao this early, saying the funds were released after Bag-ao facilitated the requests of local government units, which long have gathered dust in the long line of bureaucracy.

Well, the timing certainly leaves a lot of space for doubt but as the DBM people have said, the PDAF or the pork does not go to the representative, or in this case the caretaker, but to the constituents.

Dinagat Island is described in various travel publications as a mystical island province, it certainly is also mysterious as far as terrain of its political landscape. All I can say is this wonderful island deserves better leadership and governance.

If there is somebody who can better lead, let the people decide, not those few and powerful who have made this paradise their own fiefdom and for their people, hell’s little acre for many decades now.

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