“We should just abolish them.”
Santa Banana, I could not believe it when I read that the Department of Budget and Management was hard put in finding billions of pesos for the cash aid for people adversely affected by the two-week Enhanced Community Quarantine. It was later reported that the DBM had to source the money from savings of government agencies.
It is difficult to imagine how a government could run out of money when it is badly needed during a crisis amid the surging cases of COVID-19. No wonder the government has been borrowing a lot from many sources. Just how much Duterte has borrowed is another problem.
In any case, my gulay, if the Duterte government has a problem of where to get money, why can’t it get rid of so many government offices and agencies that serve no purpose or could be handled by other agencies?
There is for instance the Presidential Commission on Good Government, which has long served its purpose. Recall that after the exit of Ferdinand E. Marcos in 1986, the first thing that President Cory Aquino did was to create the PCGG to run after alleged ill-gotten wealth of the Marcoses and their cronies. This led to the sequestration of hundreds of business corporations reportedly involved with the Marcoses and their cronies.
There was a flurry of sequestration and the appointment of so-called “fiscal agents” that did nothing but abuse their authority. I can only recall the hundreds of cases filed by the PCGG against the Marcoses and his alleged cronies. The PCGG lost all of them at the Supreme Court. That’s the PCGG for you. One more thing about the PCG — the commissioners themselves took over and replaced the fiscal agents, getting in the process allowances and remuneration, which by law is illegal. In other words the PCGG has become nothing but a dumping ground of political proteges, and has served no other purpose. If there are still cases involving ill-gotten wealth, the Department of Justice could easily handle them.
Another government agency that has become irrelevant is the Office of the Government Corporate Counsel (OGCC) which is supposed to handle the legal problems of the many Government-Owned and -Controlled Corporations (GOCC). But do you know what has been happening? These OGCC lawyers assigned to any GOCC have been milking the corporations and getting excessive allowances to as much as over 50 percent of their salaries. This is of course contrary to law.
For several years, the Commision on Audit has flagged the OGCC for allowing its lawyers to abuse their authority, and yet when President Duterte declared a war on government graft and corruption, he did nothing to revamp the OGCC. Why? Because those lawyers are political proteges.
Another government agency which serves no purpose but to have its commissioners attend meetings abroad is the Climate Change Commission. The chairman enjoys cabinet rank and gets the same salary as a secretary of a department. Four other commissioners have the rank of a department undersecretary and get salaries as an undersecretary. Their main job is to attend summits on climate change.
Do we really need them when the United Nations gives us a report on climate change regularly? I know for sure that its chairman and members are Malacanang proteges. Santa Banana, what a waste of good money from the people, my gulay!
There was also for many years a move to privatize 47 PAGCOR casinos nationwide, but the government has not done anything about it. The proceeds of the privatization of PAGCOR to run casinos could, my gulay, amount to billions of pesos.
Finally, there’s the Presidential Anti-Graft Commission which is supposed to go after graft and corruption in the government. What for? We already have the Ombudsman, the Justice Department and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) that’s supposed to look into graft and corruption.
These are big sources of billions of pesos which the government critically needs amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
President Duterte would do well to create a special task force to study the existence of agencies which are spending billions of pesos of people’s money. The sale would otherwise provide the government money amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The problem is that a president has to kowtow to so many politicians by dumping their proteges in useless government offices and agencies. This must stop.
* * *
Vice President Leni Robredo has reportedly rejected the move of Senator Ping Lacson to form a united coalition with the idea of having only one presidential and one vice presidential opposition candidate. Seems logical to me. But, Robredo rejected it. Why?
The reason Robredo rejected the idea is that among all the possible opposition candidates for President, she ranks the lowest. That’s obvious enough, aside from the fact that Robredo has not yet made up her mind on whether to run for president or governor of Camarines Sur.
According to inside sources, the quandary of Robredo is that the Liberal Party is now the opposition, she no longer has funding, which spelled M-O-N-E-Y. Which brings me to the problem of the opposition, which is disunity.
With more than one opposition candidate in 2022, the administration’s candidate may well have a walk in the park.
* * *
With the surge of COVID-19 pandemic cases getting scarier and projected to reach as high as 17,000 cases every day, there’s the possibility that this two-week lockdown for the National Capital Region may be extended.
With this, the much-anticipated jumpstart of the economy may be downgraded. We might just go back into recession, my gulay!
