Feed the hungry; fire the greedy
TITA C. VALDERAMA
OF the many problems besetting the Duterte administration, the rising prices of consumer goods and the seemingly worsening corruption in the bureaucracy must urgently be addressed.
President Rodrigo Duterte could take advantage of his third state of the nation address (Sona) before the joint session of Congress next Monday to spell out decisive steps his administration is taking to lower prices and curb corruption.
By resolutely addressing these issues, we may see a spike in Duterte’s ratings in the next surveys.
While the President’s approval rating in a Pulse Asia survey on June 15-21 was the highest at 88 percent, a Social Weather Station (SWS) poll one week later on June 27 -30, showed an 11 percentage-point drop in his net satisfaction rating at +45.
What happened in between was something many Filipinos found foul. Duterte described God as stupid and mocked the story of creation in a speech at a technology summit in his Davao hometown.
It was an attack on the religion of a majority of Filipinos.
But Duterte could win over those whose feelings were hurt by his “stupid God” remark by taking decisive actions that would address a problem close to the stomach.
He will be able to show that he is sensitive to the plight of consumers who are feeling the crunch from the unabated rise in the price of oil products.
When I was starting out as a reporter, one of my editors told me that a strong lead paragraph would be something that would address the hunger of ordinary people.
The same formula would work best in governance.
Food is a basic human necessity. It should not only be accessible but should also be affordable even to the poorest of the poor. Allowing prices of basic consumer goods to soar is tantamount to food deprivation because of poor government leadership.
On the other hand, responding to hunger by keeping prices of consumer goods affordable is an act promoting human dignity.
President Duterte needs to assure the people that he cares for them, that the high prices they are paying for consumer goods are not just wasted on inefficient and incompetent people he had appointed in government.
He should order a thorough review of the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion Act, or the TRAIN law, and make sure that it would have minimal impact on the prices of basic consumer goods. |
At the same time, he should take seriously the findings of the Commission on Audit (COA) in various agencies that smell of brazen corruption by his appointees, particularly in the Department of Tourism (DoT).
Government auditors at DoT found more than P2 billion worth of irregular transactions under the leadership of former secretary Wanda Tulfo-Teo, from official junkets to advertisements placed on television networks.
While Teo resigned from the DoT in May following the controversy over a P60-million DoT ad placement on her brother Ben Tulfo’s television program, she should still be held criminally liable for those irregularities.
While she was at DoT, Teo managed to travel to five international destinations last year, according to the COA report. In those travels to Berlin, Germany; Bangkok, Thailand; Istanbul, Turkey; Singapore, and South Korea in 2017, Teo received a total daily subsistence allowance of P857, 961.95.
COA said Teo and 93 other DoT officials incurred traveling allowances amounting to P19.29 million despite the lack of specific guidelines from the central office, “thus exposing the government to risks of incurring expenditures for excessive and extravagant travels abroad.”
Other officials named in the report include tourism undersecretaries Benito Bengzon Jr., Rolando Canizal, Katherine de Castro, Alma Rita Jimenez, Falconi Millar, and assistant secretaries Frederick Alegre, Reynaldo Ching, Maria Lourdes Japson, and Daniel Angelo Mercado.
These appointees milked the DoT. They should not be allowed to get away with it. Fire those who are still there. Charge them all, and make them pay for their greed.
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