P11 MILLON PER SQ. METER? WHERE'S THAT?

So, the US Navy's original plan to remove the "USS Guardian" war ship out of the Tubbataha Reef, off Palawan,  towards end January or early February will no longer be pursued.  Instead, the US Navy has decided to now dismantle the whole ship and break it into pieces -- what a massive cost of scrap! --  ostensibly to avoid further damage to the Reef, considered a World Heritage and a Philippine "national treasure.".

Even as the US Navy had sincerely apologized for the very unfortunate incident, Philippine environmentalists, as to be expected in an environmental damage as massive as this one, continue to be shouting to the four winds in endless uproar.  It is needless to emphasize that the United States is ready and willing to answer for all the consequences caused by their warship to the country's marine resources, including all fines and compensatory damages in accordance with Philippine laws.  All the while, I thought everything would be resolved in due course in a manner mutually satisfactory to both sides.

I could not help but be downright shocked, however, when I read and realized the impact of certain relevant numbers accompanying this unfortunate happenstance.  For example, the USS Guardian pala has a value of 277 Million US Dollars.  The US government will therefore be throwing away this much with its decision to totally dismantle the entire ship into pieces.  On the other hand, the Tubbataha Reef has a total area of 97,030 square meters, of which only approximately 1,000 square meters, or slightly more than 1% have been damaged.  I could not help but mentally use some arithmetic.  Assuming a P/US$ exchange rate of P40.00, the 277 million US Dollars is equivalent to more than 11 Billion Pesos,repeat: PhP11,080,000,000.  Divide this by the 1,000 square meters of the damaged reef, and we easily get PhP11.08 Million as the cost of the damage per square meter. I cannot help but ask myself:  Is there a place in Planet Earth that costs PhP11 Million per square meter?

Of course, it was entirely the USNavy's decision to totally dismantle the USS Guardian to pieces.  While no one is telling them to do so, the decision might  be because they believe that if they would salvage the ship by having it lifted by I don't know what kind of equipment, there might be further damage to the Reef.  But while I am not an engineer, I think the damage would work both ways.   That is, they might just the same  bring further damage to the reef if the ship were just to be lifted.  But then, the ship could be salvaged at whatever value it might end up to b, not really at the price of mere scrap..

Maybe, just maybe, an American citizen named Trumps, Jr. had a point in recently saying in the news that the decision to prioritize the Reef over the ship was stupid.  Well, I refuse to comment on what Trumps Jr. must probably be alluding to. Perhaps, again, just perhaps, Trumps Jr. believes there is nothing on this earth that money cannot buy.

ACTS AND WORDS

A couple of days ago, a neighbor and kumpadre of mine, then in the process of renewing his LTFRB franchise for student-shuttling services, asked me, in a seemingly complaining temperament, the Tagalog translation of  "How is my drIving? Call LTFRB..."  He said that warning was now required to be in the vernacular.  I was caught a bit unguarded and could not immediately reply, even as I thought the LTFRB must surely have the standard transltion it wanted.  This morning, as I was having my daily five-kilometer walk in a not-so-busy highway, I saw a passenger jeep already showing the original LTFRB notice at the back, freshly painted in bold letters,  as: "May reklamo? Tumawag sa LTFRB."  Good translation, I mused.

Truth to tell, I have been wondering ever since it was introduced how effectively this LTFRB warning had helped enhance the drivers' safety awareness and responsibility while on the road.  Now, I cannot help but assume it's kind of effective.  As a matter of fact, Mr.Abaya,  the newly installed DOTC Secretary, appears to have been himself convinced that the vernacular translation of the warning should really end up far more effective, lest he would have not paid renewed attention to an old regulation that nowadays most everybody no longer throws a random.  And so, the next time I meet my kumpadre, I intend to tell him to just forget everything about the extra effort and cost of new painting the new requirement would entail, as he had no choice but to abide by.   That, even as deep inside me I very well know not a few people have been sneezing or laughing at LTFRB in this connection.  But of course government rules, at the very least,  do deserve an assumption of regularity and good intentions.  So be it!

Meanwhile, I suddenly recall a more or less related episode I had been into not so long ago.  One day, I had just alighted into a passenger jeep on my way to the city hall, when I noticed that the driver was clearly over-speeding, to the extent of ignoring the two school-zone signposts we passed by in succession.  A middle-aged woman sitting opposite me looked into my eyes, perhaps wanting me to help her tell the driver to be careful.  I just kept silent.  When the jeep finally reached the town plaza and stopped to load/unload new/old passengers, the woman called a traffic officer nearby and loudly complained about the over-speeding driver.  Without asking anyone among us, the other passengers, to confirm the truth behind the woman's complaint -- I reckoned that should be the minimum requirement under the circumstances --  the traffic officer just outright demanded and confiscated the driver's license and silently issued a TVR (traffic violation receipt).  The driver could not do anything else but scratch his head in voiceless disgust.  I muttered to mysef: "Buti nga!" even as I felt a bit of remorse within me that I had earlier ignored the woman's complaint, which I never realized would me as well-meant and defiant as that.

I have just related two true-to-life episodes on how different government authorities implement traffic rules and regulations quite differently from one another.  Not unlike the voice of verbs in the English grammar, the one is passive, the other is active: take your choice. For me, actions are truly always mightier than words.              

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE AUDITS COMPARED

It is ostensible that Sen. Allan Peter Cayetano does not have full trust on the independence of the Commission on Elections, so he wants a third-party private auditing firm, probably Sycip & Velayo, to conduct an audit of the Senate finances.  But of course, even with the outright agreement of Sen. President Enrile, the entire Senate must have to concur.  Whether it's going to be a public or a private auditor to  examine the Senate funds does not really much matter, for as long as both auditors are, first and foremost, aware of the fundamental differences and similarities in the financial management control systems existing in the government offices, relative to those existing in a private organization.

First off,  there exists a whale of a big difference in the budget control systems existing in a private establishment and those in government offices.  And each auditor, public or private, are bound to confine strictly within his own standards.

For example, in private enterprises, the budget is totally  closed at the end of each budget year.  That is, budget savings, called surplus,  are closed to deficit, so that for the ensuing year, the previous budget is no longer relevant..  An entirely new budget is prepared to govern the next year's transactions. But that is  only after carefully scrutinizing both the "savings," or "surplus"  and the over-expenditures or deficit, primarily to determine whether, as well as why,  certain budgeted items had ended up with a surplus or savings and some over-spent.  That should then provide appropriate guidelines in budgeting for the ensuing year.   In either case, each budget holder is required to explain, and is urged to avoid any recurrence of either unexplained surplus or deficit.    For all intents and purposes, the previous year's unspent budget will  not be used to augment next year's budget, since everything reverts back to zero as an entirely new budget is developed..  

In the government, the Constitution itself, under Section 25(5) of Article VI expressly authorizes the Senate President, and several other major department heads, "to augment any item in the general appropriations law for their respective offices from savings in other items of their respective appropriations."  It is a matter of plain common sense that 'budget savings" are reckoned with only at the end of the year, as indeed it was towards December 2012 that Enrile availed of his discretionary authority to realign his own department's savings to augment the so-called MOOE (maintenance and other operating expenses) of the respective offices of the senators.  Thus, in auditing Enrile's performance in this regard, a private auditing firm must consider not the budget control systems existing in private corporations but this specific provision of the charter, no more no less.  For example, did Enrile committed the "anomaly" of giving  'cash gifts and bonuses" to the senators for their respective "personal" benefits, or merely "to augment" their respective MOOEs.  Enrile recently clarified the "cash gifts and bonuses" as more or less a misnomer, saying he just quoted Senator Drilon who had jokingly asked him whether there was some cash gifts or bonuses awaiting the  Senators for 2012, as had been traditional in the Senate;  as well obviously as in other major departments, pursuant to the above constitutional provision.  Enrile explained that he purposely issued a check to each senator, for the check to serve as each senator's official receipt or acknowledgement of the people's money that they may only spend for public purposes, and which, in turn, each one of them is bound to liquidate under existing systems and procedures.

Such existing liquidation systems and procedures are, meanwhile, what is provided under Section 25(6) of the same Article, which says: "Discretionary funds appropriated for particular offices shall be disbursed only for public purposes to be supported by appropriate vouchers and subject to such guidelines as may be prescribed by law."  The "particular offices" mentioned here is very obviously the respective offices of the senators.  Thus, it is clearly the manner by which the individual senators had disbursed the discretionary funds appropriated to their respective offices that will essentially form the primary bone of contention of any audit to be conducted, be it by COA or by an independent private auditing firm.

As things stand, the COA was recently quoted in the news as saying there was nothing particularly wrong or objectionable with what Enrile did, firstly because it was within his discretionary authority under the Constitution.  For reasons I earlier highlighted, no one would  expect a private auditing firm to be judging Enrile's performance in light of what is expected from him if he were the manager of a private corporation. He should rather be judged according to his explicit authority under the law.  On the other hand, it will essentially be the individual senators who are going to be individually audited, if Sen. Cayetano truly meant well in what he suggested. .  For example, things like Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago had been paying her maid's salaries and her personal grocery bills out of her Senate budget, as Sen. Ping Lacson, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, had recently revealed, would surely be looked into by the auditors, public or private.  It's no wonder, therefore, that  Sen. Enrile had outright concurred with Sen. Cayetano, providing the entire Senate would agree.

Well, given the foregoing considerations, it somehow defies plain common sense that Sen Cayetano -- whose main political foe appears to be only Sen Enrile -- had suggested such  private audit as would more  largely cover his very own and the other senators' respective financial transactions than  Enrile's.  In the interim, whether the other senators would support Cayetano's resolution  remains to be seen.

Personally, I would meanwhile wish that a comprehensive audit be indeed conducted, be it by COA or be an independent auditor.   Then and only then, perhaps might  the Senate as an institution be given the opportunity to either rise up from the ugly gutter it has sunk itself into, or to remain wallowing therein until a new Congress is born.

MY APOLOGY

Oh, how the media sometimes tend to confuse the readers! Or, was it rather my own perception that leaves  much to be desired?  At any rate, I have just learned a good lesson to henceforth keep in mind in writing my future blogs.

I am referring to my earlier blog, titled: "Illogical, Immoral, Illegal," describing Sen. President Juan Ponce Enrile's much ballyhooed "cash gifts and bonuses" to senators.  After listening to Enrile's TV interview with Mareng Winnie Monsod in GMA7's "Bawal and Pasaway" I must apologize for what I said.  After all, and I am convinced by Enrile's explanation, such "cash gifts and bonuses"  were really never intended for the senators' personal pockets.  Rather, Enrile had covered each one of those fund transfers to the senators' accounts with  an individual check, purposely  for each check to formally serve as a receipt or acknowledgement that each senator had been entrusted with money belonging to the people, in turn for their respective liquidation via vouchers covering  purely public purposes.  Of course, Sen. Allan Peter Cayetano was questioning, rightly at that,  why the liquidation was only through a so-called "certification."   But while such certification can not but reflect a semblance of "anomaly,"  it seems to me the weight of the anomaly eventually falls not as much on Enrile as upon  the senators themselves, not one of whom, quite suspiciously, had ever complained in the past even if they had known all about the undesirable practice since time immemorial   Sen. Angara was indeed correct in recently confirming that practice was time-honored.  And yes, Enrile may have been less prudent in allowing only a "certification" as liquidation -- if that is true, anyway --  but haven't  they, meaning the senators themselves acted more imprudently in conveniently not shouting against it much earlier.  And so I ask: isn't Cayetano suddenly raising heaven and hell about it only now because, along with three other senators, he got very much less than what all the other senators had received?

Note that Enrile had outright agreed to Cayetano's suggestion, subject to majority concurrence of the whole Senate, that a private auditing firm looked into the Senate's fund.  I am almost dead-sure the other senators would not support  that.  If they do, it is going to be their individual accounts that might reveal anomalies, not as much Enrile's, who did nothing but to apportion the Senate savings into the individual senators' respective budgets.  That discretionary authority is well sanctioned by the Constitution, whereas the Constitution requires that each senator covers all expenditures out of people's money under their custody by official receipts and vouchers indicating they are really for public purposes.

Indeed, it was so unfortunate that the word war between Enrile and Cayetano had brought the entire Senate into the gutter.  I tend to believe, nevertheless, that it was Cayetano, not Enrile, who first went into personal tirades against the other.  I don't think the Senate could yet rise up from the ugly gutter it had sunk into, before they adjourned for the mid-term elections.  Let's just wait and see who between Cayetano and Enrile's son, Jack, would be more negatively affected in the forthcoming senatorial polls.  Methinks that is everybody's wild guess.      

POOR ARITHMETIC, POOR JUDGMENT

It's truly a pity, but methinks Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV has just written the obituary for his reelection bid.  His recent clash with Sen. President Juan Ponce Enrile, so far the most seasoned politician this country has at present,  was lamentably reflective of his downright immaturity  in the arena called politics.   If only he had shown that immaturity -- I hate to call it "stupidity" -- a little bit earlier, or before PNoy had put up his coalition's senatorial ticket, I doubt very much if Trillanes would have been included.

First and foremost, I wonder endlessly what had gone in between him and Enrile -- Trillanes had even said Enrile's "sins" to the people were peanuts compared to those of former CJ Coronado, yet without elaborating any further  -- to personally curse Enrile until hell.  .

I don't think Trillanes was amply supported by either good arithmetic or correct judgment when he recently announced his oust-Enrile group had just been waiting for the final nod of the 4 Liberal Party senators (Drilon, Recto, Guingona and Pangilinan) to complete at least 13, the magic number to unseat Enrile.  That is because those four (4) plus the four (4) of them (Trillanes himself, Santiago and the 2 Cayetanos) makes only 8, still very clearly short by five (5), and at best by 2, if, based on hindsight, Koko Pimental who voted for Enrile's ouster plus Bongbong Marcos and Joker Arroyo who both abstained,  were to be included.  Chances are Trillanes had also had Angara and Villar, both ex-Senate Presidents, in mind, on the belief that  either might be tempted to want to come back vice Enrile. That is where Trillanes had been quite far from the realities of politics, as well as had lacked sheer common sense, much less good judgment.

For, who among Angara, Arroyo, Santiago and Villar would still wish to be Senate President in the dying days of the present Congress?   Arroyo, Angara and Villar are already in their last terms, while Santiago will in due course go away to the International Court of Justice.   Even Drilon, whose term is up until 2016, would not be a bit interested to head the Senate, if only between now and practically the start of the campaign season in February.   Chances are Drilon may rather just be smilingly saying unto himself:  "Ala eh, loko ga si Pilo? Hihintayin ko na lang next Congress, after all, siguradong wala na akong kaagaw!"   This is where, in my humble view, Trillanes, being the  tenderfoot politician that he is,  had behaved very immaturely and unrealistically   There is reason to believe that had not Trillanes been that bombastic against Enrile, Enrile would not have done what he did.  As things were,  Enrile  had not altogether ignored nor taken the matter with a grain of salt.  He immediately convened the Senate and categorically announced his resignation.  Whether that was feigned or real is beside the point.  The point is, that was truly a grand strategy, so perfectly timed,  indeed, as to have caught the entire Senate practically unguarded.  That, in turn,  is where a veteran differs from a neophyte in the field of politics.   It's a bit ironic that Trillanes still keeps mouthing and vowing to high heavens to oust Enrile come what may before the present Congress ends.  Sign of desperation!    Whether that is his own way of campaigning for himself or against Enrile's son, Jack (surely not against the father whose term trancends to 2016), nobody really knows.  One thing is certain: so doing, he is kissing his own reelection bid goodbye,

Meanwhile, whatever President Aquino had in mind soon after that grand drama in the Senate remains to be seen.    I am sure Trillanes' supporters are hoping against hope that P-Noy doesn't regret having adopted Trillanes into the administration's political folds.

CONCRETE SC DEFINITION OF "URGENT BILL" NEEDED

As things now stand, a petition has been filed with the Supreme Court questioning the constitutionality of the RH Bill.  I am not privy to the exact position of the petitioners in this regard, or as to why they consider the controversial bill  unconstitutional.  I myself had been against that bill for four basic considerations.  One, I believe a specific law is no longer needed under the present situation where contraceptive materials have long been freely accessible to those who need them anytime.  Thus, for  a law to still be passed to practically make contraception mandatory necessarily undermines the government's much avowed position  to guarantee  freedom of choice between the natural and artificial methods of family planning.  Two,  neither does its objective to control this country's population growth still remain relevant, given unimpeachable statistics showing our annual population growth rates to have been constantly declining since 1960;  in fact,  to a point comparable to, if not really lower than, those of some countries in the region.  Third, I do not believe population is the culprit behind the continuing poverty of our people; rather it's the continuing failure of government, with corruption incorrigible all around, to allow our economic gains to really trickle down to the poorest of the poor.  And fourth, I honestly believe most of the RH Bill proponents do have hidden agendas and vested personal interests hidden behind their apparently laudable intentions.  But the bill has now been passed, and everything is water under the bridge. Thus, I've already rested my case against it.

As I said, I do not know the arguments raised by the petitioners in the case they elevated to the Supreme Court.  And so, I cannot  pass personal judgment on them for the moment.  At the very least,. however, I sincerely believe there is cogent reason for it to reach the high court -- well, to determine not as much its constitutionality  per se as the constitutionality of the  manner by which it was enacted.   I mean, everybody knows that that bill would not have been passed in the present Congress had it not been declared or certified  as urgent by the President.  The big question therefore aches for an answer:  had that certification of "urgency"  truly passed the litmus test of constitutionality?

This necessarily brings us to Section 26(2) of the Constitution.  I remember having quoted that in an earlier blog, but let me repeat it here: "No bill passed by either House shall become a law unless it has passed three readings on separate days, and printed copies thereof in its final form have been distributed to its Members three days before its passage, EXCEPT when the President certifies to the necessity of its immediate enactment to meet a public calamity or emergency."  I do not know how others perceive  this provision but, for me,  the only compelling requirement for a bill to be considered "urgent" and thus to be  passed immediately to the extent of  by-passing  the normal legislative process, is when, and only when, there exists a public calamity or emergency.   I leave it upon the readers to judge for themselves whether such public calamity or emergency did exist to constitutionally justify the immediate passage of the RH Bill.

Having said the above, I am writong this blog not as much with respect to the RH Bill -- like I said it's water under the bridge -- as with particular respect to future legislation.  At the very least, even if the RH bill may finally be ruled as constitutional by the high court  --  it is likely going to be since,  in fairness, notwithstanding the presidential certification of urgency, that bill did pass three readings on separate days -- methinks it would still be important that the court should say something on whether a justifiable urgency,  i.e.,  a public calamity or emergency, indeed preceded its blitzkrieg enactment.  That is, to forestall  repetition of what appears to be a bad precedent.  For example, some sectors have lately been in the news urging the President to certify as urgent the passage of the FOI Bill.  Alas, I  do not know what sort of public calamity or emergency awaits the nation if this bill is not passed immediately!

PRESIDENTIAL PREROGATIVE

Finally, US President Obama has given the imprimatur for the institution of gun control in America.  It should be nice to know that President  Aquino has also announced, even before Obama did, his own wish for gun controls in these parts -- albeit not total, and that is well taken.     But look at the big difference.  Obama announced his gun control policy complete with specific instructions and procedures on how he wants it done.   Here, the president simply vocalizes his own imprimatur for gun controls, providing not total,  period.  In other words, without listing down the related  guidelines, so as to forestall  any misinterpretation in the implementation down the line.   And so the police, the military and all others concerned would most probably implement quite differently from one another, or according to their respective styles, in turn spawning public confusions and eventually making the gun controls more of the ningas-kugon kind.

In a more or less related development, it is certainly the very first time to happen in this country's history  that a sitting President has been given exemption from the gun ban during the election season.  No one may of course theoretically quarrel with the Commission on Elections in justifying the presidential exemption, saying that if all members of the military are exempt, why, indeed, should the President be not exempt, being the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.  To some extent, methinks the Comelec may have just conveniently ignored the fact that even military personnel are strictly not exempt from the gun man when they are off-duty as such.  And it may well be said the President is primarily a civilian and merely "on-call" as military commander-in-chief most of the time.  As a matter of fact, there may be reason to believe that the President had not himself even thought of that justification when he asked for exemption.  It is more likely that it was the Comelec, not wanting to antagonize the President by gong against his presidential prerogatives,   that has ever thought of that otherwise rather lame justification -- strictly speaking, that is.

But whether that alibi had originated or not from the President, or merely unilaterally supplied by Comelec is  beside the point.  The point is it should be comparatively  nicer to think that all of our past Presidents had always realized and were fully convinced that in any organization, or in all relationships between the governor and the governed, the former must always set the example, so that none of the latter  may ever have the slightest reason for refusing to follow.  Moreover, the plain truth is most gun owners do want to have guns for their personal protection --   the kind of personal protection that the president unquestionably doesn't need at all because wherever he goes he is always surrounded by armies of gun-toting security protectors, all  ready and willing to die to bodily protect him.  That he wants to keep his guns not as much for such personal protection as to merely freely indulge in his shooting hobby -- during the election season when everybody else religiously abides by the gun ban -- is quite ironically reflective of an utter lack of personal discipline.   In my humble opinion, that mirrors  extreme imperviousness   to ideas and impressions conformable to human  society. That cannot but leave some bitterness in the people's mouth.  Of course, the President  may just be wanting to pursue non-stop an otherwise not undesirable hobby.  What can we do if to not set the right example is truly the President's style of governance?   It is just that such style inevitably turns difficult for right-thinking Filipinos to swallow as people hear him loudly shouting to the four winds,  practically telling them: "Smoking is a vice, stop it!.  But don't look at me, I am the President!!"
           

ILLOGICAL, IMMORAL, ILLEGAL

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile has been quoted in the news as challenging Sen. Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago to sue him in all courts of law and he will defend the legality of the "cash gift and bonuses" he gave to Senators toward the end of last year. There is reason to believe that, being a seasoned lawyer in his own right, the Senate President may have convinced many that what he did may not be exactly moral but it was perfectly legal.  That may be why Dante Jimenez of the Volunteer Against Crime and Corruption is filing only an ethics complaints with the Senate, rather than, for example, a graft case with the Ombudsman.

I am certainly not a lawyer to argue with those who are.  But for me, for any act to be legal, it must first and foremost be logical (acceptable to plain common sense) and moral (acceptable to one's conscience).  In turn, ethics --  the human discipline dealing with what is right or wrong -- must conform with the requirements of  logic, morality and the law. Necessarily in that order, I suppose.  Now, let us analyze the circumstances surrounding the much ballyhooed budget realignments made by Enrile.

It is the prime responsibility of any department head, be it in public or private organizations, to consciously manage his department's budget with the end in view, as much as permissible, of  balancing the revenues and expenses to avoid a deficit.  A deficit happens when expenses overshot revenues; if it is the other.around, there is savings.  And savings, plain common sense dictate, must revert to treasury at the end of the year when the current year's budget is cload and a new budget is prepared.  Unfortunately, that was not what happened.   Enrile had instead realigned the savings and appropriate it essentially as senators' cash gifts and bonuses.  Worse, a large part of the savings is reported as having come from the unspent salary of ex-Senator, now President Aquino most probably from July 2010 up to December 2012.  That Aquino's salary as Senator continued to be included in the Senate budget (even if it ws too well known it would not be spent as such)  as well of course as in the Executive department's budget, is not only erroneous "double handling," as accountants call it; it also borders on "mental dishonesty."   And that the so-called "savings" is people's money, for all intents and purposes, not Enrile's, but Enrile gave them away as his personal "gifts and bonuses" to the Senators, is clearly marked by extreme imperviousness to impressions and ideas that human society regards as morally acceptable.

Now the legality.  True, the Constitution provides that the Senate President is among several high-ranking heads of government authorized to augment any item in the general appropriations law for their respective offices from savings in other items of their respective appropriations.  But the charter did not stop at that.  It added: "Discretionary funds appropriated for particular offices shall be disbursed only for public purposes to be supported by appropriate vouchers and subject to such guidelines as may be prescribed by law.  And so the curious question aches for an equally curious answer: "Are personal gifts and bonuses to Senators for public purposes.

At the very least, methinks the Senate President has abused his discretionary authority in this regard.

        

LEAKY BUCKET

Now I know at least part of the reason why this government has never been able to balance its budget.  I mean, we will indeed continue to incur budget deficits year in and year for as long as our budgeting and financial management control systems remain at the mercy of a leaky bucket holder.  This impression could not have perhaps been brought to the fore were it not for the highly controversial transfer of the budget savings of his department to individual senators in the form of  "cash gifts and bonuses" and to augment their maintenance, operating and other expenses (MOOE).

It may be said, at least to some extent,  that it was the Constitution itself that had practically introduced the leaks.  For, while any transfer of budgetary appropriations is generally prohibited, the President,, the Senate President, the Speaker, the Chief Justice and the heads of the Constitutional Commissions may, by law, be authorized to augment any item in the general appropriations law for their respective offices from savings in other items in their respective appropriations.  Some say the authority is rather selective and inequitable for specifically covering only the above departments.    I say, No, it is neither selective nor inequitable; on the contrary, doesn't these departments already cover the whole gamut of the national government?  

As things are, Senate President Juan Ponce-Enrile may have taken advantage, rightly or wrongly, of his discretionary authority in this regard when he gave away as bonuses P1.6 million each to 18 senators, P250 K each to 4 others (known to be his political foes) and another P600 K each to augment their respective MOOEs.  All these roughly sums up to P72.0 million, and constitute just one of the leaks I am talking about.  Not to be outdone, Speaker Feliciano Belmonte revealed another leak as he announced he  also gave away, if I remember correctly, some P350 K to each of the approximately 280 congressmen ( or P98.0 million) under the same discretionary appropriation authority as that of Enrile.  Assuming these fund transfers were fraudulent, hence reverted to the national treasury, imagine how many classrooms, which the people very direly need, could have been constructed out of P72 + P98 million leak from budgetary bucket of the people's money?   At this juncture, the curious question would come to the fore:  Can't these budgetary leaks in Congress also happen in the offices of the President, the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Commissions, each of which enjoys the self-same discretionary powers in their respective budgets as the Senate President and the Speaker?  Alas, neither Jesus nor Satan can be sure!  Chances are, these other users of the people's money have just been behaving more discretely or less stupidly as to open up the leaks in their own buckets. 

Certainly, the Constitution provides safeguards and imposes conditions against this kind of misappropriation of the people's money by officials authorized to spend it, to wit: (a) the disbursement must be solely for public purposes (to which may I humbly ask: are bonuses to senators who have surely got their respective 13th pay "for public purposes?)  (b) it must be supported by appropriate vouchers (Is this requirement reliably validated?) and (c) it must be subjected to such guidelines as may be provided by law (Has the related enabling law been duly passed for this purpose?)  And, of course, the Commission on Audit is always there to ensure that these safeguards are effectively put in place.  The only little problem is that the COA is just one of the so-called Constitutional Commissions that is given the same discretionary authority over its own budget, and may not be expected either to highlight its own leaks.

For which reason, if you were the COA,  "Are you going to expose your own ilks?"  The Batanguenos would forthwith retort: "Ala eh hindi!  Loko ga si Pilo?"

In the interim, the group of Dante Jimenez, called VACC (Volunteer Against Crime and Corruption), is poised to file an ethics case against Enrile and the Senators who had accepted money from Enrile, among which only Sen. Santiago had returned the P250,000 given her.  The thing is Sen. Allan Peter Cayetano, chair of the Ethics Committee that will handle the case, has not himself returned his P250,000, along with Sen. Joker Arroyo, also an Ethics Committee remember and had received P1.6 million. This could only  mean both Cayetano and Enrile did  not believe that what Enrile had done was unethical.  If so, I leave it to my page-viewers to surmise what destiny lies ahead of the VACC's ethics-complaint case.

Finally, I now also do know why so many people in these parts keep aspiring at all costs to be Senator or Congressman.  Once one  won, all the campaign funds, personally-sourced or otherwise, they would have invested are going to be peanuts when compared to that which would flow back into their pockets from the leaking bucket of the people's money that the government keeps and which they themselves are primarily supposed to guard.  Ah.  I suddenly recall a fitting street lingo for this: "Bantay-Salakay".  

ABUSE OF DISCRETION

The media debates on the propriety or impropriety of "cash gifts" given away by Sen. President Juan Ponce Enrile and House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte to the lawwmakers under their respective command will continue to brew indefinitely until after the Commision on Audit shall have complete its probe at the behest of  Sen Miriam Defensor Santiago and formally issued its independent findings.  The debates are certainly not only among media columnists and opinion makers, but also between or among lawmakers themselves.

So far, Sen. Pro Tempore Jinggoy Estrada has called upon the the four Liberal Party Senator-allies of President Aquino (Drilon, Pangilinan, Guingona and Recto) to take their position on Enrile's allegedly "unconscionable" and "unconstitutional" realignment and conversion of the Senate "savings" into MOORE (Maintenance, Operating and Other Recurring Expenses).  Meanwhile, in a recent television interview, COA Chair Maria Garcia Pullido-Tan has said that offhand what Enrile, as well as Belmonte did was well within their authority as laid down in the Constitution regarding re-alignment.

Section 25(5), Article VI, of the Constitution provides: ". . . the President, the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and the heads of Constitutional Commissions may, by law, be authorized to augment any item in the general appropriations law for their respective offices from savings in other items of their respective appropriations.  That, against Sect. 25(6), same Article, which says that: Discretionary funds appropriated for particular officials shall be disbursed only for public purposes to be supported by appropriate vouchers and subject to such guidelines as may be prescribed by law.    

As things stand, there are a number of questions that curiously ache for truthful answers in this connection:  First, were the so-called "cash gifts and bonuses" given directly in the name of the lawmakers?  If so, Second, were the appropriate withholding tax duly deducted?  Third, were the portion pertaining to MOORE also given directly to the lawmakers, for them to do whatever he wants about it? Fourth, were the lawmakers' subsequent  disbursements from the transferred or re-aligned funds strictly within the purview of  "disbursed only for public purposes?"  Fifth, were such disbursements required to be supported by appropriate vouchers?  Sixth, How did the "savings" come about?  For example, did it include the salary of former Senator and now President Benigno Aquino, from July 2011 onward, as well as the budget for other Senate expenses are known to be "not to be spent, anyway" at the start of each budgeting season.  Methinks the answer to the last question is crucial, because that will validate, or invalidate, Sen. Santiago's claim that the Senate may have been budgeting for items that it very well knows are not to be spent, and then classify it as "savings" for eventual giveaway to Senators.

My hopes run high the COA would not only zero-in on the Senate President's discretionary power for fund re-alignments under the Constitution, but must also seek honest answers to the above and, perhaps, many other equally relevant, questions.  In the ultimate reckoning,in the final interest of public good,  there is always something called "Abuse of Discretion."

BAD PRECEDENT

Senators Tito Sotto and Chiz Escudero have been recently in the news, urging the President to certify as "urgent" the passage of the still controversial Freedom of Information Bill, which seems to be lagging behind in the Lower House even as the Upper House appears raring for its passage before Congress goes on recess in anticipation of the forthcoming elections.  That, after the passage of the even far more controversial RH Bill, thanks or no thanks to the presidential certification of its urgency during the dying days of last year.  Of course, whether or not the President would give in to the two Senators' request remains to be seen. 

But based at least on how the House has railroaded the passage of the RH Bill on the strength of the clear presidential intrusion into an otherwise purely legislative process, methinks, with due respect and with malice towards none, the President had abused, and might again be tempted to abuse,  his constitutional mandate in this regard.  I do not recall any past president had acted as arbitrarily before.     

And that is because Section 26(2), Article VI of the Constitution clearly provides that "no bill passed by either House shall become a law unless it has passed three readings on separate days, and printed copies thereof in its final form have been distributed to each members three days before its passage, except when the President certifies to the necessity of its immediate enactment to meet a public calamity or emergency.  There can be no gainsaying the fact that the passage of the RH Bill satisfactorily complied with the  "three readings" and "printing and distribution of copies" requirement.  But, for heaven's sake,  where lies the "necessity of its immediate passage to meet a public calamity or emergency?  Everybody knows that that  legislation had undergone very rough sailing in Congress for at least two decades and, up until its final passage, it had been so monumentally  controversial as to divide public opinion practically in the middle.  And so, what kind of calamity or emergency would the nation pass through if the bill had been left for further and deeper national deliberation and discernment?  Of course, what has been done may never be undone, so the saying goes.

Meanwhile, the present administration is known to be lukewarm or indifferent to the passage of the FOI or Freedom of Information Bill  without the ROR "right of reply" proviso inserted, which nonetheless Congress apparently contradicts..  Under this situation. I cannot help but think:  Aren't Sotto and Escudero, who were both against the RH Bill, perhaps just trying to give the President a bitter dose of his own medicine?  I mean, the Senators might be speaking silently in their minds: "Mr. President, you have certified as urgent the passage of the RH Bill even though there is no known calamity or emergency situation threatening the nation even if it were temporarily shelved for further deliberation.  Well, there may not also exist any public calamity or national emergency if the FOI bill, also long debated in previous Congresses, were not immediately passed.   But then, Mr. President,  you should be obliged  follow your own precedent!"  .  

At any rate, these thoughts are mere products of my oftentimes wild and curious imaginations.   Let us then simply  wait and see.