Presidential candidate Sen. Panfilo ‘Ping’ Lacson believes corruption could be stamped out if public officials do not feel the need to steal.
If elected president, Lacson said, he would enforce a 15-85 partition of the national budget, the lion’s share of which goes to local government units (LGUs).
Lacson outlined his ideas in a radio interview on Wednesday in Tagbilaran City, Bohol.
Asked about his strategies to reduce graft and corruption at the LGU level, Lacson said he would institute single-standard policies from the top.
The presidential aspirant looked back to his own experiences when he led the Philippine National Police (PNP) from1999 to 2001 and how he managed its contingency and discretionary funds. One of his first orders of business was to address cases of corruption in the PNP.
Lacson adopted a policy where 85 percent of the organization’s annual budget allocation would be distributed to the regional units, leaving 15 percent for the national headquarters to spend.
“Because at that time, 60 percent (of the funds) were at the headquarters, only 40 percent were going to the frontline units. I said, this cannot be, because without proper funding, the police would be tempted to extort money. So, I said, the headquarters would only take 15 percent, 85 percent (would go to regional offices),” Lacson said.
He also said during his watch, the discretionary fund (also known as command reserves) was pegged at P100-million. He refused to spend it for himself and instead redirected the budget for the financial assistance of uniformed personnel killed in the line of duty.
Lacson also used to instruct his comptroller, then PNP Chief Superintendent Romeo Acop, to send money to regional units for their command conferences, so they would not go into so much trouble of allocating a portion of their own budgets just to host him and his team during such events.
Lacson also talked about his refusal to use a company credit card for his own business expenses or personal consumption. He said he saw no need for it because he was never the type of leader who would spend lavishly on personal things. Macon Ramos-Araneta
The veteran statesman noted that such incidents fueled his resolve to ‘lead by example’ and solidified his resistance to corruption because it was very important for him to be the kind of person he was expecting his subordinates or followers to become.