Those of you who can’t or don’t care to read fine print may want to strain your eyesight a bit and go through that four -page advertisement in the main section of this newspaper yesterday.
The ad is the audited report on the salaries and expenditures footed by taxpayers for each member of the Senate and the House of Representatives in 2012.
That was the year that ended in a scandal involving senators’ lump sum “maintenance and other operating expenses.†The list divides those figures into “extraordinary and miscellaneous expenses†and “other MOE.â€
Juan Ponce Enrile, at the time the Senate president, assisted by his high-flying chief of staff Gigi Reyes, first found themselves in the national spotlight after playing favorites and giving crumbs from the Senate MOE as “Christmas gift†to four senators: Miriam Defensor-Santiago, the Cayetano siblings and Antonio Trillanes IV.
In 2012, according to the report, each congressman received a basic annual salary of P1,117,181 while senators received salaries ranging from P420,000 to P1,028,645, with Enrile getting P1,177.30. Santiago recently said the actual numbers are much higher because senators also get extra pay for attending meetings and related official activities.
The salaries are reasonable considering the qualifications that should be (but are not) required of competent lawmakers. But taxpayers may start grumbling over additional expenses incurred by some of the senators.
Nine of them charged Juan de la Cruz for “consultancy fees†ranging from P17,241.38 to a total of P1,342,870. Taxpayers may also grumble about “rental of office space/equipment†charged to the state by nine senators, ranging from P7,234.14 to P2,439,436.
Taxpayers will probably want a super typhoon to blow down the Senate while the chamber is in session, after going over the miscellaneous expenses (P674,000 to P6,799,992 million each) and “other MOE†(a total of over P14 million to a whopping P60,717,945.11). The highest figures were incurred by Enrile as Senate chief.
Those were all on top of the regular expenses for maintaining a lawmaker’s office, such as personnel salaries and funds for equipment and travel (P15 million for JPE and his staff). In all, Juan and Juana de la Cruz forked out P1.2 billion for the upkeep of 23 senators in 2012.
The salaries and enormous perks, courtesy of the biggest employer in the country, the state, are on top of kickbacks from the pork barrel, fat commissions from favored contractors, and profits from being virtually exempt from Customs rules.
With each scandal, we get a clearer picture of why people who were born and bred in the poor part of town very quickly resettle in Forbes Park and other exclusive villages after joining Congress.
We also understand why political dynasties are built, and the resistance to any enabling law that will stop or at least moderate dynasty building.
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Until the Christmas gift furor, the congressional MOE was never subjected to a genuine audit. After the scandal, the MOE was scrapped – or so we were told. This could be like the Priority Development Assistance Fund; we need to comb the annual general appropriation to find out if the lump sum MOE is still there, under a different name, in an amended form.
There ought to be a law to rationalize the salaries and perks of lawmakers as well as the expenditures that they can reasonably incur. Detailed rules are also needed for transparency and itemized reporting of expenditures at the end of each fiscal year.
Lawmakers, however, can’t be expected to pass legislation that will threaten their golden goose. Unless taxpayers get raging mad and show extreme displeasure.
How do we show displeasure? I have heard people suggest that Pinoys should stage something like the revolutions in Europe, annihilating the power and financial elite so a nation can have a fresh start, with a level playing field so people can advance in life based on merit, on hard work and genuine skills rather than bloodlines.
But all those unsolved murders and torture cases notwithstanding, we are still a generally peaceful people. When we can’t compete with the well-connected or bring home a decent paycheck after the taxmen are done with us, we don’t take up arms and stage a bloody revolution. We simply leave the country.
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Transparency advocates may want to launch an aggressive information campaign to educate Filipinos about the right to good governance.
The state gets a piece of everyone. Even tricycle, jeepney and bus fares are computed based on fuel prices and their 12 percent value-added tax plus exorbitant road tolls with VAT.
Look at the fine print in utility bills and see those layers of taxes and fees slapped on captive consumers. Consider the VAT on basic items such as medicine and cooked or processed food.
Think about the millions we spend on each lawmaker, with their many long breaks and the shamelessly lavish birthday parties they hold for their staff in five-star hotels. And then consider how hard it is to save anything from your monthly paycheck, from which tax is automatically withheld. Consider how tough it is to just break even for a small or medium enterprise that gives Kim Henares and City Hall all their due.
Think of how hard it is to get a box of personal effects released from Customs while the well-connected can effortlessly bring in tons of rice and an endless stream of luxury vehicles without paying the right duties. Recently, even a foreign diplomat had to fork out a “facilitation fee†to get his personal vehicle released.
There are no such hassles for those whose family business is politics. The survival of the business does not depend on turning a profit when your employer is the taxpayer. A lawmaker doesn’t even need to author a law. All he needs is to ensure name recall come election time. It also helps to know how to share those multimillion-peso perks and dole out patronage.
A few people reap huge benefits from such patronage. The rest of the people, burdened by daily toil, are largely swindled of the right to the judicious use of tax money.