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".