Dole-out, GMA style

GMA and dole-outs seem to be inseparable partners. Where GMA is, expect dole-outs.

This has been her governance style then. Remember the still unresolved brown bags containing hundreds of thousands of Philippine pesos allegedly received by local government officials who visited her in Malacañang? Remember the accusations of alleged giving of envelopes to those who met her for election purposes?

Remember how many millions of recent dole-outs she gave to certain farmers and certain people as rice and electric subsidy?

Yesterday, in Cebu, she demonstrated this again when she distributed P10,000 inside a prepared envelope to each of the families of about 30 Sulpicio victims.

Where are her dole-outs coming from? From government funds, of course. Mostly from taxes collected from the Filipino people. If her government were only efficient and honest in extending welfare services to the needy, the dole-outs are not at all necessary.

We are sure even GMA knows that dole-outs do not resolve the problems comprehensively, that dole-outs are palliative, temporary and perhaps even more costly for the nation, in the long run. But dole-outs are certainly brilliant publicity stunts and very tempting to the greater masses of impoverished.

As we have already articulated in a previous article, we are specially incensed at the reported US$1.5 million that GMA and her friends in Congress spent for their short visit to the United States. At P45 to US$1 exchange rate, is that about P67.5 million of public money, of people’s money squandered for just a few privileged and rewarded by GMA?

Did GMA and her advisers plan the pre-US dole-outs and the post-US visit dole-outs to cover up and hide from the Filipino people the highly insensitive and extravagant amount GMA and her party spent for that short visit to the States?

How can the Filipino people demand for an accounting from GMA for the reported hundreds of thousands per local official distributed in Malacañang then and more recently, the supposed, thousands of dollars spent per congressman and senator who joined her for the official trip or junket to the States?

Gratefully, there are concerned Filipinos who have alerted us about their move to launch a signature campaign demanding that the public officials who joined GMA for the US visit publicly account for the public funds spent for their US trip. Perhaps, legal action with the Ombudsman is also a subsequent possibility for the Filipino people who deserve transparent public accounting from public officials?

Was it House Speaker Nograles, (who also joined the US trip) who clarified that the representatives and the senators who joined GMA spent their own private money for that trip? If they did go using their own funds, then that makes their trip private, not official, Speaker Nograles?  Why then did these officials, the Speaker included, leave their constituents at the height of Typhoon Frank and the rice and food crisis?

 It will certainly not come as a surprise if Speaker Nograles may correct himself and say, ah, eh, yes, public funds were used. If so, then can Speaker Nograles explain and show the Filipino people the details of the official trip of each representative who went with GMA? Can Speaker Nograles also take the lead in showing how much funds were used for what by him and by the other public officials who went to the US before and during the fight of Manny Pacquiao?

A sprinkling of dole-outs here and dole-outs there to the poor Filipino farmers, consumers, and now the families of the ill-fated Sulpicio should not cover-up for the HUGE amounts of public funds doled out or spent by GMA and a few public officials for a trip to US that still needs to be explained and accounted for to the Filipino people.

The Filipino people should not be dazzled and tempted by cheap dole-outs. They should see beyond the trapo type of governance of GMA and her allies.

How dare they give dole-outs when our people deserve more via legitimate, honest, and effective governance and welfare service delivery? How dare GMA and her allies in national and local governments use and claim dole-outs as their own when the funds they appropriate are rightly those of the Filipino people?

Gratefully, there is now an awakening of our people, across sectors, to the insincerity of publicity and power hungry officials. Typhoon Frank, despite its damaging presence, may have brought in a lot of soul-searching and truth-seeking among our people. The post-typhoon scenario can only get better, we pray, for this nation and the most needy.

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