From The Conjuring to My Husband’s Lover: Viral Memes for Philippine Pork Barrel Scandal (VIDEOS & PHOTOS)

Amid the furor created by the pork barrel scam in the Philippines and on the same week that the country was again battered by a storm that flooded parts of the country for days, the Filipino humour was not lost.

Evidence of that is the growing number of memes about the controversial public fund misused by many politicians for their personal gain in social media, tapping popular movies, TV shows and characters to drive home the message that too much fat is bad.

One such meme, seen below, rides on the popularity of the scary movie The Conjuring by having the character of the chief antagonist in the pork barrel scandal, businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles, hang from the tree taken from the movie's art work and retitled, The Corrupting.

Another take is based on the popular GMA-7 popular gay-themed soap opera, My Husband's Lover, renamed My Pork Lovers. The creator, using Photoshop, replaced the characters played by Dennis Trillo, Carla Abellana and Tom Rodriguez by three of the principal characters involved in the pork scandal scam, namely Senator Bong Revilla, Lim-Napoles and Senator Jinggoy Estrada. Part of the P200 million pork barrel funds of the two senators allegedly were funneled to fake NGOs run by Ms Lim-Napoles, who allegedly suddenly became an overnight millionaire.

Since the bone of contention is the pork barrel, which Philippine President Benigno Aquino III has replaced with the PDAF or Priority Development Assistance Fund, many Filipinos are not convinced and said it is just the same pork by another name, hence this third meme.

Of course, no memes about Philippine politics is complete unless the feisty Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, who is for the total abolition of the pork barrel, is in one of the memes such as this one.

Finally, the woman of the hour gets her own meme, but definitely not a flattering one. There are rumours that Ms Lim-Napoles has undergone cosmetic surgery and left the country incognito. But naughty minds rendered here in this before and after surgery mug shots made her still recognisable from the odour coming from the pig sty.

Besides the viral memes, Filipinos showed their disgust over the pork barrel scam with an indignation rally in Manila and other key cities of the country on Monday, Aug 26, with thousands attending the simultaneous events.

Following the indignation rally, Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales gave an assurance on Tuesday that the inter-agency investigation on the pork barrel scam will be impartial.

Meanwhile, the Office of the President insisted that Mr Aquino's Presidential Social Fund is not a pork barrel and it could not be abolished since it is not a part of the yearly national budget by funded by gamblers raised by the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp.