Palace asked to submit detailed report on GOCCs' financial state

MANILA, Philippines - Malacañang was asked yesterday to submit a detailed report to Congress on government-owned and controlled corporations losing a lot of money.

Aurora Rep. Juan Edgardo Angara said the report would help Congress decide whether to continue funding or to privatize them.

“The unresolved issue on the scandalous allowances and perks for their executives should warrant a deeper review as to the existence of these GOCCs,” he said.

“Except the GOCCs with so-called missionary services, we should take a closer look at GOCCs which are not contributing to the government in terms of revenue generation and the delivery of services to our people.

“It’s okay to spend public funds for these GOCCs as long as this would make life better and easier for our people.

“On the other hand, those that exist only to serve as milking cows for some people should either be abolished or fully privatized.”

Angara said exorbitant salaries, allowances and other perks for GOCC officials should not be an issue as long as these are commensurate to their skills and competence.

“Personally, I don’t mind if a GOCC executive is getting P1 million a day as long as his expertise alone can bring P30 million a day to our national treasury and as long as the public is fully aware of why he is getting such an exorbitant fee,” he said.

Angara has filed House Bill 660 seeking to amend the Budgetary Reform Act of 1977 to guarantee transparency on the use of GOCC funds.

“Definitely, we should stop this useless waste of public funds for these GOCCs but at the same time, there is a need to balance this with the need to attract highly skilled and competent people to effectively run these GOCCs, otherwise they will end up in better-paying jobs in private companies here and abroad,” he said.

“We should stop this abusive and scandalous use of GOCC funds but at the same time, we should also make sure that these GOCCs are run and managed by competent professionals so that they would not be going elsewhere to find better paying jobs commensurate to their field of expertise.

“These reports of excessive salaries, allowances and perks for some GOCC officials should be a wake-up call for Congress to review and amend the Budgetary Reform Act of 1977.”

Under Angara’s bill, GOCCs, their subsidiaries and affiliated companies would be compelled to submit their proposed corporate operating budgets, along with their annual budget for review and approval by Congress.

Under current practice, the budgets of GOCCs, including those of their subsidiaries and affiliated companies, are not submitted to Congress.

The bill also seeks to require GOCCs to submit to Congress separate yearly financial performance reports, as well as status reports on obligations backed by government guarantees.

The bill also aims to require submission of GOCC interim financial statements to the budget secretary.