Subsidy, subsidy

As reported in the media recently, President Arroyo is earmarking P4 billion for her new subsidy program for the poor. This is on top of the P4 billion financial assistance she had extended to the impoverished electric consumers part of which was used for scholarship, student loans and assistance for conversion of gasoline - fed PUV's to gas-run vehicles.

Where will the President source this additional billions? From the excess value added tax revenues on oil collected from April to June, she revealed.

The P4 billion windfall is to be programmed thus: P1 billion as power subsidy for the poor at P500 each, P1 billion as soft loans for livelihood ventures of PUV drivers and their families, P1 billion for rehabilitation work on typhoon ravaged areas, and the rest for other initiatives, including P500 million for senior citizens.

To preempt criticisms, the President said this is no time for politicking since what she is doing is designed to lighten the burden of the poor during these difficult times. Well said indeed. But will people take her word as gospel truth?

Given the low credibility of her administration, few people will go along with PGMA's helping-the-poor-strategy. In the first place, since the P8 billion is a revenue from VAT, it is public money, and public money cannot be spent without a legislative imprimatur. The claim that it is an unprogrammed collection cannot justify the use of it by anyone, the President included, because such use would be a violation of existing fiscal policies and regulation.

What does the law say if the government gets more money than what it expects to collect? Any half-wit of an accountant knows what the law says and how the money is to be spent. Surely, it can never be said that the highest bureaucrat of the land can do what she likes to do with that money. And even if a multitude of angels say PGMA is right, she can never escape criticisms.

Bypassing the legal requirements for government expenditure is of course the first criticism. We are a government of laws and the President should be the last person in this hapless archipelago to make light of these laws, more especially on those that have to do with how resources are spent. Money sticks on the fingers (a phrase from St. Josemaria Escriva), that's why perhaps the legal prescriptions on the treatment of income and expenditures in this country are unusually detailed and complicated. (Ironically, despite these, where do we stand in the global ranking of corrupt countries?)

Politicking is another criticism. Since the President is a political figure, whom would she trust to distribute her bounties but her own political henchmen? Election year is only 23 months away. Who would ever believe that no political sentiments would be factored in, in the selection of the beneficiaries? It is true that GMA cannot seek reelection, but for her own protection once she steps out of the Pasig Office, don't you think she would move heaven and earth to ensure that the one who takes her place would be sympathetic to her and her family?

Right now the President's nemeses are saying that despite the Supreme Court's dismissal of their ZTE complaint the case is far from over. What this means is that the graft case now pending in the Office of the Ombudsman will be pursued not just during PGMA's incumbency but most probably even after it. When this happens, will GMA take also the gantlet like Estrada?

Perceptive as the President is, it is most likely that her dole-out strategy supposedly to lighten the burden of the masa is precisely designed to buy the sympathy of the latter. Her acceptance rating is already a double-figure nightmare. Add to this the global oil and food crisis and you have a powder-keg of a situation. The average Pinoy of course knows such crisis is not of PGMA's own making. But when the stomach is empty who can do any rationalization?

I'm sure the President knows the risk of what she is doing. An economist, she knows that a dole-out does not work to improve the economy. Not only that simple giving eats into the self-respect of the recipient, it encourages sloth and a don't-care frame of mind. A risky situation, however, calls for a risky strategy. Thus her dole-out program.

I'm sure too she knows that her approach is open to suspicion. The beneficiaries for instance, cannot issue receipts for what they get, hence, how is one to account for the money given out?

At any rate, as we watch our Lady President do her pro-poor options, we hope and pray something good will come out of these - for the sake of the country and its people. 

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