EDITORIAL – P30T bonus for government, noodles for taxpayers

The Cebu City Council has just approved a P201 million supplemental budget, more than half of which, or P127 million, will go to the P30 thousand bonuses for each and every City Hall official and employee. The approval of this supplemental budget did not suffer any hitch, unlike an earlier supplemental budget which until now has remained unacted even if it was meant for far less frivolous and unwarranted expenditures such as undeserved bonuses.

And the difference between the two supplemental budgets? The first one, the one that has remained in limbo despite several tries to have it approved in order to fund the delivery of basic services, has identified its source of funding as the initial proceeds from sales of property at the city-owned South Road Properties. The second one has identified non-SRP-related sources for its funding.

So what is it about the SRP that makes it such a hot potato when it comes to the first supplemental budget? There are people in the city council who believe the SRP belongs to them and not to the Cebuanos and that any disposition of its proceeds must await the reinstallation of their leader into office. Until then, any attempt to use SRP proceeds, even if in the service of the Cebuanos, will have to be stymied, at least for as long as these people keep control of the council.

The second supplemental budget met swift approval by the council because more than half of it will go to the huge bonuses that will make people at City Hall happy. Of course some members of the dominant faction in the council went through the motions of being scandalized by the amount of the bonus but in the end still went along with it.

And why is the giving of the bonus so important that it deserves swift action by the council? There is political expediency in making people happy, especially people who work in the same building as you, people who, even if they are not on your side, you at least will want to keep from stabbing your back. A bonus, especially a hefty one, is a good neutralizing factor, more so when the next election is just a few short months away.

The bonus is, of course, undeserved. Worse, it is shameful and scandalous. That is because the people who pay the taxes from where the bonuses are derived have been deprived of the basic services, like garbage collection, by the very people who sat on the first supplemental budget specifically meant to deliver those services. No greater crime can be committed against a people than in this manner.

Again, to make it clearer -- the dominant force in the council sat on a budget that would have kept basic services to the people at a more efficient level, for reasons purely political and self-serving. Having withheld such services from the people, they now use the money these very people paid in taxes to gift themselves huge bonuses for a job they did not do. With P30,000 their noche buena is now assured. Those who paid the taxes for the bonuses will have instant noodles.