Formula for failure
Formula for failure
Updated 01:29am (Mla time) Sept 16, 2004
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the September 16, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
SHE isn't abandoning a sinking ship, National Treasurer Mina Figueroa says. And she isn't leaving due to policy differences over how to deal with the huge government deficit. Rather it is because she needs to close the "personal deficit" that developed after she left her job in a large commercial bank and joined the government three years ago. "My resignation is not because of anything else but only because I have to think of my own finances," she told reporters.
"Maybe she wants to transfer to a GOCC," suggested Sen. Manuel Villar, chair of the Senate committee on finance which had just been apprised about the multimillion-peso yearly compensations of top executives in government corporations, eliciting laughter from the audience.
That remark was neither cute, nice nor funny. It was uncouth, unkind and unfair. In case Villar hasn't noticed, the government bureaucracy doesn't pay its officials and employees very well, otherwise why would nurses at the Philippine General Hospital shave their heads and march in the streets to demand a salary increase? The President herself earns only P57,750 a month. Figueroa as the national treasurer gets a monthly salary of P28,875, a fraction of what she used to earn in the private sector. What's wrong with trying to cut one's losses or to earn more through hard and honest work?
It is not only the teachers who are overworked and underpaid; most government employees are. For instance, a chief of division in a national government office gets a salary of about P20,000 monthly, and yet he is required to have a post-graduate degree. At the very least, Figueroa deserves to be praised for her candor in admitting she doesn't wish to continue to make-do with what the government pays her and again calling the nation's attention to the ridiculously low salaries government employees and officials get.
What makes this situation rankle even more is that there is no such thing as equality in misery among those who work for the government. The list of 100 highest paid GOCC executives amply demonstrates the gross disparity in compensation between those who serve in the government and those who work for government corporations. Heading the list submitted to Villar's committee are Maria Livia de Leon, chair of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office who got P9.9 million in salaries and allowances in 2001, and former Leyte Rep. Sergio A.F. Apostol, who received P9.2 million in 2002 as chair and president of the Philippine National Oil Company's Energy Development Corp. And to think that Apostol, for example, probably knows much more about English diction and elocution than oil exploration and power generation.
It is not just at the very top that people working for GOCCs are more equal than others in government. For instance, some members of the legal staff of the Government Service Insurance System earn much more than the chief justice of the Supreme Court.
It is difficult to imagine a more potent formula for corporate failure than making politics the basis for top appointments and allowing people, with little to lose, write their own paychecks. So it is hardly surprising that most GOCCs have been losing heavily and now government is left not only holding an empty bag but assuming their debts amounting to more than P2 trillion.
Malacanang certainly is largely to blame for this. It has become standard practice for President Macapagal-Arroyo to parcel out positions as rewards among her loyal political lieutenants, regardless of their qualifications. And she doesn't even have the will or the heart to enforce the rules she herself has set, like that one limiting the compensation of presidential appointees to not more than twice her own salary.
But Congress cannot profess innocence either. Its fingerprints are there in the charter of every government corporation. Their charters exempt government corporations from following the Salary Standardization Law and allow them to set the compensation packages for their officials and employees. The result is that every profitable corporation distributes as much of its earnings as it can among its officials and employees, while those that find themselves in the red ask the government to subsidize its operations and pay for their losses.
Congress is hardly a model of prudent spending. For serving in the Senate Electoral Tribunal, three justices earned P1.5 million each in a year. If the justices earned that much, could the senators who served in the same body have settled for less? Then there is their slice from the pork barrel. Could this be lower than the salary of the highest paid GOCC official?
Updated 01:29am (Mla time) Sept 16, 2004
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A12 of the September 16, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
SHE isn't abandoning a sinking ship, National Treasurer Mina Figueroa says. And she isn't leaving due to policy differences over how to deal with the huge government deficit. Rather it is because she needs to close the "personal deficit" that developed after she left her job in a large commercial bank and joined the government three years ago. "My resignation is not because of anything else but only because I have to think of my own finances," she told reporters.
"Maybe she wants to transfer to a GOCC," suggested Sen. Manuel Villar, chair of the Senate committee on finance which had just been apprised about the multimillion-peso yearly compensations of top executives in government corporations, eliciting laughter from the audience.
That remark was neither cute, nice nor funny. It was uncouth, unkind and unfair. In case Villar hasn't noticed, the government bureaucracy doesn't pay its officials and employees very well, otherwise why would nurses at the Philippine General Hospital shave their heads and march in the streets to demand a salary increase? The President herself earns only P57,750 a month. Figueroa as the national treasurer gets a monthly salary of P28,875, a fraction of what she used to earn in the private sector. What's wrong with trying to cut one's losses or to earn more through hard and honest work?
It is not only the teachers who are overworked and underpaid; most government employees are. For instance, a chief of division in a national government office gets a salary of about P20,000 monthly, and yet he is required to have a post-graduate degree. At the very least, Figueroa deserves to be praised for her candor in admitting she doesn't wish to continue to make-do with what the government pays her and again calling the nation's attention to the ridiculously low salaries government employees and officials get.
What makes this situation rankle even more is that there is no such thing as equality in misery among those who work for the government. The list of 100 highest paid GOCC executives amply demonstrates the gross disparity in compensation between those who serve in the government and those who work for government corporations. Heading the list submitted to Villar's committee are Maria Livia de Leon, chair of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office who got P9.9 million in salaries and allowances in 2001, and former Leyte Rep. Sergio A.F. Apostol, who received P9.2 million in 2002 as chair and president of the Philippine National Oil Company's Energy Development Corp. And to think that Apostol, for example, probably knows much more about English diction and elocution than oil exploration and power generation.
It is not just at the very top that people working for GOCCs are more equal than others in government. For instance, some members of the legal staff of the Government Service Insurance System earn much more than the chief justice of the Supreme Court.
It is difficult to imagine a more potent formula for corporate failure than making politics the basis for top appointments and allowing people, with little to lose, write their own paychecks. So it is hardly surprising that most GOCCs have been losing heavily and now government is left not only holding an empty bag but assuming their debts amounting to more than P2 trillion.
Malacanang certainly is largely to blame for this. It has become standard practice for President Macapagal-Arroyo to parcel out positions as rewards among her loyal political lieutenants, regardless of their qualifications. And she doesn't even have the will or the heart to enforce the rules she herself has set, like that one limiting the compensation of presidential appointees to not more than twice her own salary.
But Congress cannot profess innocence either. Its fingerprints are there in the charter of every government corporation. Their charters exempt government corporations from following the Salary Standardization Law and allow them to set the compensation packages for their officials and employees. The result is that every profitable corporation distributes as much of its earnings as it can among its officials and employees, while those that find themselves in the red ask the government to subsidize its operations and pay for their losses.
Congress is hardly a model of prudent spending. For serving in the Senate Electoral Tribunal, three justices earned P1.5 million each in a year. If the justices earned that much, could the senators who served in the same body have settled for less? Then there is their slice from the pork barrel. Could this be lower than the salary of the highest paid GOCC official?
posted by Dante at 5:20 PM
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