Sunday, August 03, 2008 Mercado: Memo to their honors By Juan L. Mercado Sidebar
LOCAL officials here should perhaps ask themselves aloud: “Did we ever have the misfortune to clone Cesar Moreno?”
Cesar who?
He’s vice-mayor of Aloguinsan. His wife, Cynthia, is mayor. But that’s not where Moreno’s “15 minutes of fame” stems from. The curse of dynasties plagues us. Look at President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s extended family, embedded in official posts.
Auditors lashed Aloguinsan officials for rigging contracts, pocketing cash from equipment sold sans bidding, etc. So do many officials in 79 Philippine provinces, 136 cities and 1,501 towns. If prosecutors did a tenth of their jobs, our jails couldn’t hold them all.
Aloguinsan’s net income yearly is a puny P7.48 million. Only 12 percent of residents have toilets linked to septic tanks. Yet, officials splurged P540,000 for “a live concert and a dance-breakout.” Worse, their Honors billed a trust account for the poorest--“the 20 percent development fund.”
Have other Cebu officials similarly pillaged this safety net for the vulnerable?
The Local Government Code provides that LGUs appropriate, in its annual budget, 20 centavos out of every internal revenue allotment peso. That goes to “development projects.”
Roots of this provision go farther back: to the UN Environment Conference in Stockholm in 1972. There, the Philippines and over 100 countries crafted an innovative “20-20 Pact.” This earmarked 20 percent of development resources for human needs of the poorest: nutrition, health care, medicine, potable water and sanitation, education, etc.
“Human development spending,” the Stockholm consensus went, relieves grinding poverty. It curbs disease and tamps down death rates. Section 287, in the Code, is the Philippine response to the “20:20 Initiative’s” humane vision.
But politicians manipulated this vital safety net into a mini-pork barrel. San Carlos City siphoned P110,000, from this Fund, so their boy scouts could join a jamboree in Pampanga, COA found. Dapitan disbursed half a million pesos for its “executive band.”
Cebu City splurged on fire hydrants, cement for sidewalks, even “tourism promotion,” etc. Sibonga officials paid themselves P2.6 million in “cash gifts.” So did San Remigio officials to the tune of half a million. In Davao Oriental, Sangguiang Panlalwigan officials allocated P669,892 “as financial assistance”-–for themselves.
Few LGUs draw up adequate Annual Investment Plans. Many politicians prefer taking credit for handing out taxpayers’ money. Others can’t craft development projects.
Yet, $50-dollar livelihood loans for poor women, won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank. “Micro-credit is a means…whereby large population groups find ways to break out of poverty,” the Nobel citation said.
That’s exactly how the Center for Agriculture and Rural Development helped half-a-million poor Filipinas and families. Thus, it got the 2008 Magsaysay Award for Public Service.
“There’s little for a people-oriented strategy that builds human assets for the poor” in politicians handling of the Fund, Sun.Star Daily noted. “But it reveals elbow room for graft.”
Ruling after ruling safeguard the Fund’s “preferential option for the poorest.” Mountain Province officials asked DILG: Could they siphon from the 20 percent fund to supplement salaries of national high school teachers? And could they patch up funding deficits in other projects from the Fund?
No way Jose, said DILG Opinion No. 5 on Aug. 10, 1999. And that policy remains in force today. But it is, alas, honored more in the breach than in the practice. But when one sashays on dance floors, as in Aloguinsan, who listens?
