Congressional audit on Cabinet: Interference?

The Year 2009 is just beginning and let me take note of the suggestion of Speaker Prospero Nograles that made the headline news on Jan. 1 that Congress would conduct a performance audit on Cabinet members in order to find out who among the government officials in the Arroyo administration are not implementing their policies. If Speaker Nograles pushes through with this, it would certainly be unprecedented. However, he is walking on very fragile, albeit dangerous territory because of that age-old dictum dubbed the co-equality of the three branches of government.

This means that each branch of the government, the Executive, Legislative and the Judiciary, is supposed to be totally independent of each other and this means, Congress has no right to nose around or interfere with what the Executive is or isn’t doing and vice versa. However, the lines of independence among the three co-equal branches are often blurred. Thanks again to the defects in Cory Constitution.

A few years ago, I interviewed then Chief Justice Hilario Davide Jr. and asked him a direct question, “What is your official vehicle?” The Chief Justice replied, “A Toyota Camry.” Now everyone knows that the official vehicle of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) is an armored Mercedes Benz… while I haven’t seen the official vehicle of the Speaker, although I’m sure it is not a Toyota Camry. That alone proves that some co-equal branches of the Philippine government get lesser or cheaper vehicles. So much about equality, huh?

But we all know that despite the so-called salary standardization for government officials, I heard that judges, clerks of court and their staff get less pay than most officials in the other branches of government. Why is this happening? I really have no answers. So instead of supporting the Speaker’s proposal to do a performance audit on the members of the Arroyo Cabinet, why don’t we ask Congress for their own performance audit? Isn’t it the job of Congress to ensure equality in the pay of government officials?

Instead of suggesting a performance audit for Cabinet members, Speaker Nograles would do well ask for the resignation of Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman not only for that Valley Golf incident where he merely watched his son, Mayor Pangandaman Jr., beat up a golfer and his son because of a very minor golf incident, but because of the unbridled corruption in the implementation of the Comprehensive Land Reform Program (CARP). How do we know this? Just ask the Supreme Court how many cases are docketed in their courts just on the CARP issue alone and I’m sure the numbers are mind-boggling.

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There is no doubt that the second half of the Year 2009 will become the campaign period for those gunning for the presidency in the 2010 elections and I’m sure that there is no shortage of candidates who want to take a shot at Malacañang. Perhaps in order to reduce the number of presidentiables, let’s all start by asking each interested candidate on how he or she would solve the Muslim question if he or she gets to become the next president.

I know that there’s no panacea for solving the Muslim question, but this should not deter us from finding permanent solutions to this problem. Before the Christmas holidays, there was a dialogue between officials of the City of Cebu and the Muslim community in the hope that the terrorism that haunts Mindanao, especially with the recent bombing of a shopping mall in Iligan City, would not be repeated here. I really don’t know what resulted in that meeting. But what I can say is, it is time for our Muslim brethren to know that if they are to be part of the Philippines, they must obey and heed all the laws of the land.

I have long believed that a modus vivendi exists between the City of Cebu (and many other cities in this country as well) and the Muslim community, whereby Muslims can engage in the business of selling illegal and pirated DVDs in return for peace in our shores. But this is at the expense of the City of Cebu itself and the theater industry as millions of pesos in amusement taxes are lost annually due to this “arrangement.”

The problem with this “unofficial” arrangement is justice itself, as this is what we’ve always believed has been happening in this country… a double standard of justice! When Muslims can peddle pirated movies (or carry high-powered firearms) in our sidewalks without fear, then something is terribly wrong with the enforcement of laws in this country.

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected]. He also hosts a weekly talkshow, “Straight from the Sky,” every Monday, 8 p.m., only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 of SkyCable.