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By Yvonne T. Chua, PCIJ
(Second of three parts)
IN 2002 taxpayers spent P939,472.47 every month
on each senator and P429,601.79 on each congressman, according to
published reports.
Shocking as these amounts may sound, they
reflect only part of what Filipinos pay for their legislators’
upkeep. Government auditors themselves say they are in the dark
about how Congress spends most of its money, in part because there
is hardly any paper trail to help them scrutinize how lawmakers
use public funds.
What they do know is this: On the average, the
upkeep of legislators has risen 10 percent every year since 1994. In
1999 this leaped to as high as 60 percent in the House and 72
percent in the Senate compared with the previous year’s.
The hefty rise was due to the raise that
lawmakers gave themselves. They increased their basic salaries that
year. In addition, significant increases were made in the budget for
foreign travel in both houses as well as in local travel among
congressmen.
Although allocations for basic services such as
education and public health have increased minimally in the last
decade, Congress has used the power of the purse to put much more
money into its own coffers.
Since the early 1990s it has legislated generous
increases for its own budget, which includes not only the basic pay
of the lawmakers and their staff but also their travel expenses,
allowances, expenses of congressional bodies, as well as the
salaries of officers such as the Senate President and Speaker of the
House and the budgets of their respective offices.
Congress raises
its own budget
From 1994 to 2003 the General Appropriations
Act, which sets the national budget for a fiscal year, increased it
annually by an average of seven percent. In comparison, the House
budget had an 11-percent average yearly increase; the Senate budget
had an average 13-percent rise.
In 2002, when the total national budget shrank
by 14 percent, Congress raised its own budget—by 10 percent in the
House and 4 percent in the Senate.
Yet the increasing sums for the legislature have
not been matched by a rise in the number of laws passed. Since the
Eleventh Congress, the legislative mill has churned slower and
slower. Congress’s efficiency hit an all-time low in the years
2001 to 2004, when it approved a measly 76 bills, compared with an
average of 400 to 500 laws enacted in previous three-year
congressional terms.
The slide began in the Eleventh Congress,
although it is the Twelfth Congress that deserves the slacker’s
prize. It boasts a record low not only in the number of laws
approved but also in the total number of bills filed. In addition,
the proportion of bills filed to the number of bills passed is a
mere one percent, compared with the three percent chalked up by
earlier legislatures.
Before martial law, the Constitution fixed
the annual compensation of senators and congressmen at P7,200 each,
unless otherwise provided by law. The amount included per diems and
other allowances, excluding only traveling expenses to and from the
districts of congressmen, and to and from the places of residence of
senators, when attending sessions of Congress.
Similar provision exists in the 1987
Constitution. Instead, the Constitution leaves it to the law (the
lawmakers themselves) to determine the salaries of members of
Congress. It only prohibits any increase from taking effect until
the full term of all senators and Congressmen approving such a raise
has expired.
A provision in the Constitution, however, is
supposed to guarantee the public access to information about the
other sums legislators get from the government. That is why every
last quarter of each year, the Commission on Audit (COA) publishes
an “itemized list of amounts paid to expenses incurred” for each
senator and for each congressman in a leading daily.
But the published COA lists apparently fall
short of the real figures of Congress. The lists from 1994 to 2002,
for example, represent only 47 percent of the total House budget
published in the General Appropriations Act and 26 percent of the
Senate budget. Where the rest of the budgets went is unclear,
because COA gives no such details.
Various reports and legislators themselves talk
about amounts congressmen receive as officers or chairs of
committees and “allowances” from the Speaker, as well as cash
advances and reimbursements for official activities. But these items
are nowhere on the list of expenses of the House.
Amounts received by senators for similar duties
are indistinguishable from other expenses such as advertising.
According to a state auditor assigned to the Senate, these amounts
are lumped under the heading “Other MOE [maintenance and operating
expenses].”
The auditor says, though, that the expenses of
senators in the performance of their duties as officers and
committee chairs are incorporated into COA’s published itemized
list of amounts paid to and expenses incurred for each legislator.
Discrepancy between
the COA list
and Senate accounts
But this doesn’t seem to be the case. For
instance, the amounts that appear in the Senate records for the
senators’ settled MOOE (maintenance, operating and other
expenses), including foreign travel in 2002, were, on the average,
112 percent more than the figures published by COA. In short, the
COA list reflected only about half the senators’ MOOE that year,
when the government paid a total of P77.5 million for the overseas
travel of 173 congressmen and 11 senators.
COA’s published list also showed that Senate
President Franklin Drilon spent P6 million in MOOE in 2002. But the
Senate’s ledger showed he accounted for P21 million, or 250
percent, more than what COA released to the public. The COA list
also did not state the Senate president’s expenses for foreign
travel in 2002, which added up to P1.3 million.
Moreover, Senate records pinpointed certain
committees for which some senators drew additional MOOE. This means
the discrepancy between the COA list and the Senate accounts was
even bigger for these lawmakers.
Outgoing senator Ramon Revilla, for example, was
given P21 million in additional MOOE in connection with his
functions as chair of the Committee on Labor, Employment and Human
Resources Development. The late senator Renato Cayetano drew an
extra P19 million as the Senate’s representative to the Joint
Congressional Power Commission of the two houses of Congress.
In 1997 the Presidential Commission Against
Graft and Corruption (PCAGC) observed that many items in the
Congress budget “are not liquidated and audited in the same manner
as expenses of public funds by all other government officials where
proofs, documents, receipts, contracts, vouchers and other pertinent
documents required by law, rules and regulation are submitted to
justify these expenses before COA would pass them in audit.”
Unaccountable legislators
“There is no mechanism,” continued the PCAGC,
“by which they [members of Congress] are made to account for funds
they received in the same manner as all other government officials
are periodically made to account for the funds entrusted to them,
either through the regular or special audit of COA or by Congress
during budget hearings or in the committee investigations conducted
‘in aid of legislation.’”
As a general rule, the law demands that public
officials submit receipts, contracts and other documentary proof
when they liquidate cash advances or ask to be reimbursed for
expenses. There are exceptions, of course, among them the
representation and transportation (local) allowances (RATA) given to
certain public officials—chiefs of division up—for official
functions.
Given as direct payment to the official
concerned or as a cash advance drawn by the cashier and supported by
an approved payroll listing the officials entitled to RATA, these
are considered “commutable,” therefore nontaxable and not
subject to liquidation. All the COA demands is a certification that
the public official spent the money for the purpose.
Another exception, although not
all-encompassing, is “extraordinary and miscellaneous expenses”
authorized under the General Appropriations Act for activities
ranging from meetings, official entertainment or public relations to
membership in government associations, contribution to charitable
institutions, or office equipment and supplies. Unlike RATA, these
expenses are supposed to be paid back.
COA does allow public officials to submit either
receipts and other documents as proof of disbursement or a
certification by the public official before he or she is paid back.
The rule, however, applies only to national government agencies. And
extraordinary and miscellaneous expenses cannot be used for
salaries, wages, allowances, and intelligence and confidential
expenses.
Intelligence and confidential funds are paid
through a cash advance to the agency head. To pass in audit, the
project officer is simply required to submit a liquidation voucher
directly to the COA chair. The rules allow the voucher to be
supported only by a photocopy of the paid disbursement voucher of
the cash advance, a certification of the agency head and approval of
the President (plus the Special Allotment Release Order and
Allotment and Obligation Slip in the case of a national government
agency). No receipts, contracts or other proof are demanded.
Congressmen simply acknowledge receipt of
P200,000 monthly lump sum
Because the bulk of the published MOOE of
representatives is consolidated with the basic pay on the payroll,
they are no longer required to liquidate the lump sum of more than
P200,000 released to each of them at the start of every month. They
simply acknowledge receipt of the money. They do not even sign a
certification that the money was used for the purposes for which it
was meant, says a senior COA auditor.
Apparently to go around the requirements of
liquidation and taxation, the House avoids classifying MOOE as
“cash advances” or “allowances,” even if this is the way its
members commonly see them. Instead, the House classifies them as
“monthly allocations” or “outright expenses.” As a result,
congressmen get away with not having to submit any document to
account for these funds.
They are not expected to submit a payroll of
their district staff or report their functions, salaries and
withholding taxes. No one starts asking if they do not produce a
report on the research their offices should supposedly undertake.
There is no demand for them to produce the list of consultants they
have hired, as well as the contracts they draw up for those whose
services they need. As far as the current rules go, how the
legislators spend their public affairs fund is their business, and
their business alone.
In the Senate, maintenance and operating
expenses are released through separate vouchers. But the only
supporting document that is often demanded is a certification signed
by the senator or his chief of staff that the amount was spent in
the discharge of official function.
The sums are based on a voucher signed by the
senator or his chief of staff, supported by an approved expenditure
program for the month and a certification by the senator concerned
that the budget for the previous month had been spent.
“Extraordinary and miscellaneous expenses” are also lumped
together in the MOOE and released as cash advances, not on a
reimbursement basis.
COA personnel acknowledge that the standard rule
in all other government offices is to liquidate cash advances that
are sourced from MOOE, including petty cash, as well as expenses for
travel and field operating activities. Except for salaries, they
say, the rest of the money paid to a representative should fall
under this rule. But since these objects of expenditures are
disbursed to a congressman as “monthly allocations” or
“outright expenses,” and not as cash advances, the government
auditors say this frees the lawmaker from the obligation to
liquidate the expenses.
An auditor who has been detailed at the House
defends the setup: “The concept is, they [the congressmen] will
spend the MOOE. How they operate their offices is up to them. They
have the discretion because of the peculiar demands of their
[district] offices.”
COA, says the auditor, presumes good faith by
the congressman and regularity in the use of his monthly
allocations. He adds that state auditors can only assume congressmen
will abide by government rules on hiring, procurement, travel,
meetings, and activities or projects.
But a supervising auditor of COA insists that
the arrangement at the House is not sanctioned at all by law. No law
or COA circular authorizes a representative’s expenses for
supplies and other items for the maintenance of his or her office as
“outright expenses” to be paid through the payroll, he says.
Other COA personnel, including auditors assigned to the House, admit
as much. (The Senate, unlike the House, does not consider MOOE
“outright expenses.”)
Congressmen must liquidate all money released
to them
“The system is defective,” laments the
supervising auditor. “These are clear lapses in accounting and
auditing procedures. How do we know if the congressman spent the
money if he doesn’t account for it? What if he pocketed it?”
“If you really want transparency, congressmen
must liquidate all the money that is released to them,” a veteran
legislative officer remarks. “But they don’t. Well, even if they
did, we know a lot would be fabricated.”
One auditor, though, is more forthright about
why COA essentially leaves the House of Representatives alone.
“The House is a political body,” he says. “We don’t want to
get into trouble.”
Many of his colleagues agree. For instance, they
point out, although COA is a constitutional body, the appointment of
its chair needs to be confirmed by the 25-member Commission on
Appointments consisting of legislators from both the House and the
Senate.
COA also finds itself at the mercy of Congress
when budget time comes: The legislature wields the power of the
purse. Horse-trading becomes inevitable, especially in the
assignment of auditors. One senior congressman, for example,
threatened to bypass the COA chair’s appointment unless an
auditor, who turned out to be a personal friend, was reinstated in a
Metro Manila town. COA caved in.
Another auditor is even more blunt: “We’re
scared of congressmen, we’re scared of the system. Babalikan kami
[They’ll seek revenge]. We don’t want to tolerate corruption,
but nothing happens to our reports. We just become subjects of
harassment, and other people even make money out of our reports.”
Auditors who question irregular or corrupt
practices in the agency—which is part of their work—are often
quickly reassigned. –With additional reporting by Avigail Olarte
and Booma Cruz
(To be continued)
The findings of the PCIJ’s study of Congress are published in the
book, The Rulemakers: How the Wealthy and Well-Born Dominate
Congress.
Part
1 |Conclusion |
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