Taxpayers deserve more transparency on how public funds are spent

HOUSE Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano on his official page describes himself as a “Speaker na Tapat “(an honest speaker) but his responses to inquiries about the House Budget have so far been less than forthright, to say the least.

But the House Budget comes from taxes levied on every Filipino, so it’s every Filipino’s right to know how it will be spent.

The core issue with the proposed 114-billion 2020 budget for the House of Representatives (House Bill 4228) is the 11.6 billion augmentation. A senior House official said they “didn’t expect” new deputy speakerships, new vicechairmanships, and new committees, all of which need significant funding.

This is odd considering that previous the House under Speakers Pantaleon Alvarez and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo were able to support President Rodrigo Duterte’s entire legislative agenda with just 111 billion in 2018, and much less in the years prior. Hence, any reasonable man on the street will ask, “Why does the House need eight more deputy speakers when fourteen in the last House were enough to do the same job?”

More specifically, “Is this House budget augmentation the best use of Public Funds?”

Cayetano, in various media interviews, defended the augmentation not by giving reasonably accurate figures, but by merely saying that only a small chunk goes to new positions and a large chunk goes to “various projects” like “research” and “salary increases.”

Frustrated with the speaker’s ambiguity, I tried to look for data myself. But alas! The House website was “coincidentally” down for several days. Unfazed, I decided to get a hard copy of HB 4228 from contacts in Congress and she got me one.

To cut the long story short, three core differences between the proposed 2020 house budget and the 2019 budget are [1] “Personnel Services” dropping by 1173 million; [2] “Capital Outlays” at zero; and [3] “Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses” or MOOE rising by 11.65 billion. But With lower funding for Personnel Services (salaries) and zero Capital Outlay (property and equipment), how will the 2020 House fund the new positions that they “did not expect?”

Congressmen surely won’t accept budget cuts without putting up a fight and Cayetano may not have enough political capital to survive that. After all, he’s still tending to wounds from the notoriously bloody three-way speakership race.

Thus, logic dictates “Speaker na Tapat” Cayetano will have to realign from MOOE.

Allocations for all but two MOOE line items remained the same, while “Utilities” rose by 113 million and “Professional Services” rose by 11.64 billion (14.13 billion for 2020 versus 12.49 billion in 2019).

That sounds a lot like “THAT” 11.6 billion.

But instead of just lumping budget increases into one item, a “Speaker na Tapat” should have further itemized the augmentations to minimize exposure to risk of corruption.

Take the case of several long-time House workers who told me they haven’t received salaries since July 2019. One of them, who earns just 115,000 monthly, even said Meralco guys were about to cut off his electricity because of months’ worth of unpaid bills. With less funding for “Personnel Services,” his congressman-boss may eventually need to ask the House Speaker for a realignment. But if this solon is in the Minority, will Cayetano simply say yes? I hope so for the sake of poor but hardworking employees of the House.

But as they say, “Hope is not a strategy,” and straightforward answers from the speaker at the onset would have discouraged speculation.

Cayetano also proposed 11.07 billion in 2020 confidential funds (CF), or 64% more than 2018 Arroyo’s 1615 million and 320% more than 2017 Alvarez’ 1255 million.

Why does the House he need 1392 million more than Arroyo, when that that 1392 million could be used to construct more classrooms, buy polio vaccines, build more roads, i.e. buy things that Filipinos certainly need.

The 11.64 billion lump sum made the House budget even less transparent than before, the same budget that seemingly provides Cayetano greater control over billions’ worth of discretionary funds. And unfortunately for taxpayers like us, the House Speaker would rather hurl insults than significantly reassure us that public funds will be well spent.

Evasive responses encourage doubt among the overworked and overtaxed Public, so I encourage the Speaker to keep true to his promise by answering queries straight to the point.

Will the speaker use the funds keep the Speakership until 2021 or even beyond, or will he stay true to his promise to be a “Speaker na Tapat?”

I hope it’s the latter. But then again, “hope” is not a strategy.

And that’s why I am asking the Speaker these questions today, not because I have an axe to grind, but because taxpayers have the right to know.

ERRATUM: The proposed total House Budget for 2020 is 114 billion, contrary to last weeks column where I said 115.6 billion.