Law needed to prevent excessive allowances, bonuses

OUR FOREFATHERS who wrote our first Constitution already foresaw the abuse of the people’s money such as that done by the board of trustees of the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) and other government-owned or controlled corporations. These trustees (who cannot be trusted) find it hard to resist the temptation to take advantage of their positions by increasing their own pay. So our forefathers put a provision in the Constitution that says public officials, such as members of Congress, cannot increase their own salaries.

But leave it to government officials to find ways to go around the law. While not increasing their salaries, they increased their allowances, bonuses and other perks and, in the case of congressmen, their pork barrel and congressional insertions. Directors of government corporations followed suit by rewarding themselves with all sorts of allowances, bonuses and other perks. For example, the MWSS trustees gave themselves, on top of their regular salaries, a mid-year bonus, a productivity bonus, an anniversary bonus, a year-end bonus, a Christmas bonus, plus a Christmas package worth P80,000, P14,000 just for attending each meeting, financial assistance, loans, cars, technical assistance. Each director collects, P-Noy said, P2.5 million a year! The bonuses stopped only when the directors ran out of names for the bonuses they wanted to give themselves. This from a corporation that has not done what it is supposed to do: provide the people with enough water.

This abuse is true not only with the MWSS but also of other government corporations, even the losing ones. And, may I add, also of the fiscal agents of private companies sequestered by the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG).

The fiscal agents or PCGG nominees to the boards of directors are supposed to preserve the assets of the sequestered companies. But instead of preserving the assets, the PCGG nominees themselves looted the companies. Witness what happened to two newspaper groups sequestered by the PCGG: the Daily Express and the Times-Journal. These used to be profitable publishing groups until the PCGG got its claws on them.

In the case of the Times-Journal, the PCGG nominees gave themselves fabulous salaries and allowances that bankrupted the newspaper group. Now it cannot pay its employees on time. In the case of the Daily Express, the PCGG sold its two printing presses but did not return the shares of stocks of employees who paid for these stocks in installments from their salaries. The PCGG robbed the rank and file employees of their investments.

Going back to the government corporations, P-Noy’s administration should look into the abuses not only of the MWSS and the National Power Corp., but of all government-owned or controlled corporations, especially government financial institutions like the Social Security System, Government Service Insurance System, Land Bank, and Development Bank of the Philippines, etc.

They will find that the directors of these corporations give themselves fabulous salaries and allowances because they are beyond the pale of the national government’s Salary Standardization Law. Like members of a mafia, they give themselves perks that would make the ordinary person blush in shame.

They will continue doing this for as long as they are not prevented, by law or by presidential executive order, from abusing their privileges. There should be a law or presidential order limiting the power of directors to give themselves allowances and bonuses.

Another thing: corporation directors, provincial board members and councilors give themselves luxury cars paid for by the taxpayers. Why saddle the taxpayers with their luxuries when these officials attend meetings only once a week and have one or more of their own vehicles already?

P-Noy’s administration, which was elected by the people on the promise of reforms and the elimination of corruption, must stop these abuses right away, because public officials in the lower echelons are learning from top officials. For example, taking a cue from the congressional pork barrel, councilors of Quezon City have given themselves their own pork barrel amounting to several millions of pesos a year each. Not to be outdone, barangay officials are also giving themselves their own pork barrel. They can do this because there is no law preventing them from doing so. Who will be the first legislator to file such a bill? –Neal Cruz, Philippine Daily Inquirer