|
By Yvonne T. Chua
, Philippine Center
for Investigative Journalism
(Conclusion)
THE Twelfth Congress formally opened on July 23,
2001, when a lawmaker’s secretary handed him the cash equivalent
of his very first paycheck as a member of the House of
Representatives.
The legislator had not looked at the amount on
the check when he asked his secretary to cash it for him. Like most
members of the public, he had assumed lawmakers aren’t paid all
that well.
But his secretary had returned from the bank
with a bulging envelope, and when the congressman counted its
contents, he was astounded: The total amounted to P247,500.
“Why is this so much?” he recalls asking his
secretary. She replied that although his salary was actually just
P26,000 a month after taxes, there was also an “allowance” for
his trips back to his district, plus other sums meant to cover the
rent of a house in Manila, consultation fees and research expenses.
He was getting all these at one go.
The secretary also told her incredulous boss,
“If you don’t want to spend it, that’s up to you. You don’t
have to account for it.”
But that was only the beginning. More money
would be coming his way fairly regularly, leaving the congressman
with the surprising realization that he was practically rolling in
cash. He has since realized that the salary and perks he gets
can match those of executives in medium to large companies. But
legislators are even better off than most business executives: Only
a fraction of their monthly take—the P35,000 basic monthly
salary—is taxed. All the rest is not. It is public money spent
much like personal funds.
Source of public worry
The entitlements to public funds and the lack of
financial accountability of members of Congress have long been a
source of real worry to the public and even to sectors within the
government. Even though the average legislator is already wealthy,
he is assured that such wealth would not be diminished by his years
in public service.
From the Eighth to the Tenth Congress, each
lawmaker received a basic salary of P17,000 a month, or P204,000 a
year. The basic pay has since been adjusted twice: to P26,000 a
month in 1998 and to P35,000 in 1999. Yet just by being present at
the plenary hall can already earn a congressman thousands more as
“appearance fee.”
A congressman can also count on other sources of
funds, including the House Speaker himself. Bills incurred as a
result of official activities, including trips abroad, are footed by
the government as well.
Government auditors point to two provisions in
the General Appropriations Act that, when invoked, often unleash a
flood of money headed straight into the pockets of legislators and
their staff. As a result, what congressmen and their personnel take
home are way above the published amounts of what they are supposed
to be receiving.
One of these provisions authorizes the Senate
President, with respect to the Senate and the Commission on
Appointments, the Speaker, with respect to the House of
Representatives, and the respective chairs of the Senate and the
House electoral tribunals “to augment any item in the General
Appropriations Act for their respective offices from savings in
other items of their respective appropriations.”(Without this
provision, such acts would be tantamount to fund juggling, according
to government audit rules.)
The other provision authorizes the same set of
congressional officials “to formulate and implement the
organizational structures of their respective offices, to fix and
determine the salaries, allowances, and other benefits of their
respective members, employees and consultants . . . and whenever
public interest so requires, make adjustments and reorganization of
positions in the regular personnel with the corresponding transfer
of items of appropriations or create new ones in their respective
offices. . . .”
Declaration of trust
Although the two provisions have never been
vetoed, they have always merited special mention as one of the
“observations” in the President’s veto message. Without fail,
the President each year has had to affirm his or her trust that the
leadership of Congress would “faithfully observe, particularly on
the aspect of compensation, the letter and spirit of the
constitutional principle of salary standardization which Congress
itself enshrined as a state policy” and ensure that its operations
are “circumscribed by the salary rates, allowable level of
allowances and other benefits prescribed or authorized by law.”
Indications are that Congress leaders pay little
heed to this declaration of trust. Part of the reason for
this, according to some observers, is that they are too busy trying
to run a fractious House of Representatives.
The Speaker himself has to find ways to please
members of the House in order to remain in power. One legislator’s
chief of staff even says that one of the first perks a congressman
gets is a “payoff” during the race for the speakership. In one
previous contest, sums reached as high as P200,000 for every vote,
discloses the legislative staff member.
And once the Speaker is in place, more money
begins pouring out of his so-called discretionary fund.
Sources of the fund are said to include items in
the House budget, such as its savings, although the money can come
from elsewhere. Drawn from it are sums for the Christmas and other
bonuses of congressmen, as well as their monthly allowances, which
supposedly vary in amount, depending on the legislator’s closeness
to the Speaker.
Congressmen who do not belong to the ruling
coalition and party-list representatives are said to receive P50,000
a month, while “favored” congressmen reportedly get double or
even triple that.
As with the other money that comes their way in
Congress, representatives need not liquidate any amount coming from
the fund. This is even though Article 25, Section 6 of the
Constitution provides that “discretionary funds appropriated for
particular offices shall be disbursed only for public purposes to be
supported by appropriate vouchers and subject to guidelines as may
be prescribed by law.”
The Speaker’s fund
The Speaker’s fund is nothing new. In the
1960s its size was estimated to be equivalent to the total budget
for the House of Representatives minus those for salaries and
personnel. Today, it is believed to be roughly equal to the total
budget for the House of Representatives minus those for salaries and
personnel and regular expenses of its members and committees.
Although the exact amount is hard to estimate, the fund could easily
be in the hundreds of millions.
Besides the monthly allowance, congressmen also
receive a bonus from the Speaker before the Christmas break. This
ranges from P100,000 to P200,000. (Occasionally, legislators receive
a Christmas bonus from Malacañang or a business tycoon.) Another
bonus lands on their laps before they take a long recess.
The idea, say legislators, is so they would have
something to spend in their districts during the long vacation. A
party-list representative says, “I accepted the regular Christmas
gift and gave it to my constituents.”
The party-list representative recalls that they
were initially left out of the Speaker’s list in the Eleventh
Congress and had to demand their inclusion among the beneficiaries
of the allowances. Some succeeded in getting paid on a cumulative,
retroactive basis, the legislator adds.
One young congressman says he takes what the
Speaker offers, but that he had to do some soul-searching in the
beginning. “What we have is an underground governance
structure,” he says. “Congress is largely a private-based sphere
where you outsmart the system of laws. Gift giving validates the
fact that nakisama ka [you tried to be with the group]. Every
congressman expects bonuses. You walk the tightrope daily. You have
to know if you should succumb.”
The representative justifies accepting money
from the Speaker’s discretionary fund, saying members of the House
spend 50 percent to 80 percent of their time in their districts.
“I have a big overhead,” he says, pointing out that he has a
staff of three at his central office and even more in the district.
Banks on wheels, ATMs
A chief of staff who has had various lawmakers
as boss also talks of “constituents who look at congressmen as if
these were banks on wheels, automated teller machines.” Fiesta
time alone can be very expensive, he says. “If you have 300
barangays, you give P5,000 per fiesta. That’s P1.5 million a year.
And even then they’d curse you and call you a skinflint.”
Some of those who spend a lot of effort getting
into “choice” congressional bodies also cite their need to
fulfill their constituents’ demands as their main motive for a
committee seat.
Take Iloilo Rep. Augusto Syjuco, who chose to be
the vice chair of the subcommittee on agriculture of the Committee
on Appropriations rather than chair of the Agriculture Committee in
the Twelfth Congress. Syjuco says the subcommittee on agriculture is
powerful because it has influence in the 29 agencies of the
Department of Agriculture. That means his constituents would be
better served, he says.
“Sa ’yo dumadaan ang pera; binibigyan ka ng
proyekto [The money goes through you, you get the projects],” he
explains. “As vice chair, I could get about P200 million a year
[in projects] for my district; as agriculture committee chair, I
could bring home at most P100 million a year.”
But many observers and House insiders say
legislators are also enticed by the more personal benefits of
congressional committees. According to several members of the House,
a congressman can draw about P20,000 to 30,000 more for expenses
each month as chair of a committee. The chair of the powerful
Appropriations Committee is said to draw an even bigger amount.
The Appropriations Committee is one of the most
contested bodies in the House. The others, says a two-term
congressman, are the Committees on Ways and Means, Accounts,
Franchises, Games and Amusement, and Transport and Communication.
Their attraction lies not only in the extra allowances of the
chairs—as well as the members—but also in the other perks, most
of which are monetary, too.
Coveted slots
The Committee on Public Works and the
subcommittee on public works of the Appropriations Committee are on
equal footing, though. Many congressmen strive to get into the
committee or the subcommittee not only for the projects for their
districts but also for the contracts they can lay their hands on,
says a chief of staff of one congressman. More than half of
representatives are engaged in property development and real estate,
and a tenth in construction. The contracts they get can only assure
business for their firms.
Also coveted are slots in the Committee on
Transportation and Communication and the Committee on Games and
Amusement. Both screen applications for franchises, some of them
involving millions of pesos.
It is no wonder then that P50,000 is sometimes
not enough to lure congressmen to the session hall whenever an
important bill is tabled for voting. Apparently preoccupied largely
with local interests, few legislators show up to constitute a real
quorum in plenary sessions. This has forced the Speaker to
occasionally resort to giving “appearance fees” to those who
attend and stay long enough to be counted.
A quorum is needed to pass a bill or vote on a
resolution. A quorum exists only if a majority of the House members
are present, or at least 115 congressmen. But Syjuco says, “We
have the worst quorum problems in the House now. Sometimes they even
list as present those who are not there. They are listed as present
even when they have already left.”
A potential lack of quorum is feared most by the
House leadership when it is time to vote on important bills of
national application, such as those on the budget, absentee voting,
power reform, money laundering and electoral reform. “To be
credible,” says the party-list representative, “these measures
have to be passed with a real quorum.”
Yet even with the promise of a P50,000 fee, many
congressmen still fail to make it to the session hall. Says one
legislator: “When the time for voting comes, bells start ringing
like those for ice cream. Nagtatawag ng quorum. The ringing lasts
for one or two hours.”
The appearance fee, however, has been known to
escalate in proportion to the urgency of the measure. In the
Eleventh Congress, members openly talked about the P500,000 many of
them got to show up during the voting on the Electric Power Industry
Reform Act. The money supposedly came from the Speaker’s kitty as
well, although it was sourced from another government agency.
With additional reporting by Avigail Olarte
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 |Part 2 |
|
