Bacaoco: No official receipts at Bacolod post office?

YESTERDAY, I accompanied my friends to the Bacolod City Post Office to mail copies of the NFSP Bulletin for members of the National Federation of Sugarcane Planters (NFSP) nationwide.

The NFSP Bulletin is a quarterly newsmagazine for the sugar industry which is published by NFSP. Through the publication, NFSP president Enrique Rojas wants to make sure that NFSP members and other industry stakeholders are kept up to date with latest developments in the industry.

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This latest edition of the bulletin contains not only local news about the industry but world sugar news as well. Moreover, it contains the current crop year's production and the pre-preliminary crop estimate for the coming crop year. I write some of the articles and I also edit the publication.

Going back to the post office, my friends from NFSP mailed more than fifty parcels containing the newsmagazine. Some parcels contained two copies while some had more than 20 copies in them. All in all, NFSP paid P5,369 for the postage stamps.

I was surprised, however, when the post office personnel stated that they do not have an official receipt for the transaction.

In lieu of the OR, the post office personnel gave my friend a one-eight piece of mimeographing paper, which shows two mechanically imprinted stamps - one circular and the other rectangular - and the hand-written amount that was paid by NFSP. The piece of paper did not bear any name of the person who issued it but only a scribbled signature which could have been that of Hitler or Saddam Hussein.

Is it true that the Bacolod post office has no stocks of ORs? That piece of paper which the post office personnel issued in lieu of the OR is easily deniable. Is this the SOP in the Bacolod post office?

What does the Bureau of Internal Revenue have to say about this? Is this practice acceptable to BIR standards?

The Philippine Postal Corporation is a government-owned corporation. As such, it is the ordinary citizens' money which was used to finance the operations of such corporation. The least that such an entity can do is to account for the money which it receives from the citizens in payment for postal services.

No certified public accountant will honor that one-eighth piece of mimeo paper as an official receipt. Unless, of course, if the concerned CPA's PRC license also bears the same mechanically imprinted stamps as the ones they use at the Bacolod post office.

* * *

Like the Philippine Postal Corporation, the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System is also a government corporation. It was galling (to say the least) to learn yesterday that MWSS officers and employees paid themselves bonuses equivalent to 25 months of their basic monthly pay.

This was bared by no other than MWSS administrator Macra Cruz during a Senate hearing the other day. Sen. Drilon was incredulous and asked, "Don't you also have a National Heroes Day Bonus?"

I have yet to read the charter of the MWSS but perhaps there is provision there which mandates that the MWSS motto on bonuses should be, "Name it, we have it."
MWSS is just one example of a government-owned and controlled corporation where its top officers and employees enjoy perks and privileges deemed unbelievable to the point of being obscene by an ordinary Pinoy worker. There are many others.

PNoys administration makes no secret of the huge budget deficit which it currently faces. Yet, government-owned and controlled corporations are wallowing in cash which its top officers and executives simply apportion among themselves.

These vampires in business suits don't give a damn if other government employees earn only P5,000 per month which is not enough even just for the food of a family of four. They don't give a hoot if other Filipino children have to scrounge in garbage cans to get a few pesos worth of scrap items to sell so that they can buy some food.

These vultures have no second thoughts in treating the GOCC's money and run the GOCC's affairs as though they are the owners of that GOCC. They had been doing that because of the culture of impunity which these GOCCs enjoy. Who ever heard of a top GOCC official being thrown to jail for excesses during his term of office?

There appears to be no accountability for the acts of these GOCC top honchos. In the end, it is the lowly Pinoy who suffers from such depraved social irresponsibility.

Take the case of an electric coop. Isn't an electric coop like Ceneco or Vresco a GOCC? Was it not government money which funded the establishment of these electric coops on an area coverage basis? Is not an electric coop under the supervision of the National Electrification Administration which is also a GOCC?
When a highly-politicized board of directors (Aren't they all?) fire an electric coop general manager, more often than not the dismissal is declared illegal and the electric coop is ordered to pay millions in back wages and damages.

When a dimwit of a general manager uses his position to terminate an employee, more often than not the termination is declared illegal and the electric coop is ordered to pay millions in back wages and damages.

In both instances, is it the personal money of the board of directors or of the general manager which is used to pay the aggrieved parties? No! It is the electric coop's funds - consumers' money from payment of electric bills - which are used to pay for the blunders of these immature and irresponsible officials.
So the miserable consumers end up suffering from poor service because their money, which should have been spent for improvement of electric coop services, was used to pay for the blunder of coop officials.

Now the cycle has come full circle because, in the first place, it is the consumers themselves who elected those officials. What a funny world we live in!

(For reactions and suggestions, email bbacaoco@yahoo.com.)