Whether P1.6m or P250k, giving such gift was illegal

Is the procession to and from the Quiapo Catholic Church every January 9th in honor of the Black Nazarene or of Chaos and Selfishness?

Every year scores are seriously hurt as hundreds of thousands of participants jostle each other to get to touch the miraculous statue. Uncaring of others’ safety, some even clamber over people’s heads and shoulders for vantage. They avow to be doing it all for love of Jesus, who preached charity. Yet they mindlessly trample on those who want only to walk and pray in silence. They damage vehicles, lampposts, and shop frontages in their path. And they leave behind tons of trash.

The annual spectacle imparts bad values, notably, outdoing each other by harsh, hurtful means. Cannot the clergy make the devotees form lines and patiently await each one’s valuable, rightful split-second turn? Are they waiting for injuries to turn into mass deaths before they start enforcing order? Do they not care that two participants each fatally were crushed or suffocated in 2006, 2008, and 2010?

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As a lawyer, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile reputedly never lost a case. But he sure is losing public affection with the exposure of his multimillion-peso gifts to the senators. His act is the angry talk of the town, and dismayed reactions are going viral. For, the money he gave away was not his but the taxpayers’.

Enrile denies giving out the funds as bribes to make his colleagues keep him as Senate President. He says those were budget augmentations and gifts. Whatever, the releases were, as unnamed senators decry, “unconscionable and unconstitutional.”

Two kinds of allotments were made in time for Christmas, Enrile says:

• First, P2.218 million each, was additional MOOE (Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses) for all 23 senators. The total P51.014 million came from annual savings when Noynoy Aquino left the Senate three years before term’s end to become President in 2010. Three tranches came: P600,000 in November, then P1,300,000 and finally P318,000 in December.

• Second, P250,000 each, was “pamasko” (Christmas gift) as a result of “lambing” (sweet-talk) of some senators. The total P5.5 million for all his 22 colleagues came from the savings of Enrile’s senatorial office, not of the Senate Presidency.

Both are prohibited, however.

Enrile says the MOOE augmentation was by “agreement among all senators.” If so, then it’s a breach of the Constitution, which requires the passage of a law to move budget savings around. Article VI (Legislative Department), Section 25-(5), allows the President, Senate President, Speaker, and Chief Justice to augment their appropriations from savings — but only “by law.”

The P250,000-Christmas gift breaks Ferdinand Marcos’s Presidential Decree 46, which Enrile as martial law administrator helped to draft in 1972. It forbids the giving to and receiving by government officials of “gifts on any occasion, including Christmas.” Punishment is one to five years in prison, suspension or removal plus perpetual bar from public office.

Too, the 1989 Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards (R.A. 6713) outlaws gifting to public officials, except if of nominal, insignificant value. And P250,000 certainly is not something to sneeze at.

Enrile believes the grumbling arose from his withholding of the two December tranches of the MOOE augmentation from four senators (and himself). He says that Senators Alan Peter Cayetano, Pia Cayetano, and Antonio Trillanes IV are with the Minority anyway, and Miriam Defensor Santiago is a maverick in the Majority. So he has the discretion to not release to each the P1.618-million balance.

Enrile adds that the four each received the first P600,000. Too, since he became Senate President, they each got MOOE bonanza from him of P1 million in 2008, P1 million in 2009, P1.316 million in 2010, and P2.118 million in 2011. “Yet they never said anything or questioned it before,” Enrile sighs.

Previous silence, of course, does not make the releases legal.

The Executive branch and constitutional commissions are expected to return savings to the national treasury. That’s precisely to prevent budget bloating and arbitrary grant of Christmas bonuses. Presumably the Senate is not exempt from the rule.

Senate funds remain largely unaudited, though. Only the P75,000 monthly salary is open to scrutiny. But not the other annual perks, which senators may pocket at will:

• P200 million in pork barrel;

• P35 million for staff salaries, no matter the number or size;

• P8 million regular MOOE (office rentals, utilities, supplies, transportation), at their discretion;

• P6 million to P15 million for every committee chairmanship, of which they each have three to six; and

• P9.12 million for foreign travels, whether or not actually spent.

No wonder everybody wants to be senator, guffaws Defensor-Santiago who, Enrile says, returned the P250,000 he gifted her.

She wants the Commission on Audit to fine-comb the Senate’s expenses. Will the COA dare to do that, given that even its own annual budget is subject to Senate approval? Sure to be the first to object is the senator who demands kickback of 55 percent from pork barrel projects.

Broken down, it’s 50 percent for the senator and five percent for the chief of staff. Imagine the low quality project to emerge from the remaining 45 percent, from where will come the cost of labor and materials, taxes, and contractor’s margin.

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Jazz composer-arranger Tess Salientes performs in a concert, “Joyful Journey,” on January 24, Thursday, at the Manila Polo Club. Featuring Charito and Andrew Fernando, with Tess’ Joyful Jazz band members Jorge San Jose, Dave Harder, and Jeannie Tiongco. Cocktails at 6:30 p.m., performance at 8, for the benefit of Makabata School Foundation. Call or text: 0918-9190491, 0917-5584113.

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Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ (882-AM).

E-mail: jariusbondoc@gmail.com