Afterthoughts for the jaundiced eye - I

On the hot heels of the President's "blitzkrieg" SONA, the "targets" - GMA and her "rah-rah" pack - countered with their weak flak.

Obviously, the ginormous anomalies - as in gigantic and enormous in current usage - are just tips of the iceberg. The over-expenses and over-abuse by the MWSS, the NFA, NAPOCOR, and DPWH are just few samplers, but enough to nauseate the public conscience in revulsion.

To the few SONA "critics" among the smattering 15 percent minority as against 85 percent Filipinos who trust Noynoy to prop up his popularity, their beef centers on alleged "no road map" for his 6-year regime, or inaccurate figures, or unfairness to innocent employees, and too vindictive.

Those who feel the peppery bite of public censure in Noynoy's SONA, had been forewarned by his pre-election platform to run after the perpetrators of graft and corruption. "Kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap" was his battlecry. Fair is fair and, the electorate virtually catapulted him to the presidency. This despite the under-the-belt canard against him, like, in unfairly casting him as wanting in mental and psychological capability and sanity.

President Noynoy's initial SONA salvo was on GMA's over-spending P41.5 B of this year's calamity funds allegedly leaving only P23.5 B for the remaining fiscal year, constituting 70 percent of the 2010 calamity budget as already spent.

Assuming the figure as inaccurate to the last pesos, it's a fact of over-spending, like, Icarus of mythology wanting to reach the skies, the avarice of the spender resulted in burning the fiscal wings that has brought the nation to perdition.

Anyway, isn't it true that the MWSS board of trustees, and may be other high echelon, have been enjoying 6 monthly fringe benefits other than the already bloated allowance per session? To fatten the immoral bonanza, like, mid-year bonus, Christmas bonuses, P80T for grocery, and two more allowances by whatever names, each Board trustee has been receiving P2.5 M a year.

And as defense mechanism, one member had the gall to brag on tv that this is normal among all government-owned and controlled corporations (GOCC). Wow, what a shameful raid on the public coffers. But yet, the MWSS is wallowing in several billions of debts and other fiscal obligations. Some of these are the long unpaid retirement benefits and pensions to its retired ordinary employees.

The next target was the NFA whose rice importations are over-bloated. There are the 10,000 metric tons bought in 2008 rotting undisposed whose color has become brownish and appears no longer safe for human consumption. Other rafters-filled bodegas are infested with insects and worms, also on the rotting stage.

As admitted by NFA administrator Lito Banayo and confirmed by USec Ernesto Ordoñez of Agriculture, DA former secretary Leonardo Montemayor, and Party-list representative Rafael Mariano, the excessive importations were sources of corruption, and worsened by negligence that resulted in P171.6 B accumulated debts and losses. These losses include the government subsidy of P10.50 per kilo to lower the local market price from that pegged at P31.00 per kilo which consumers could hardly afford. What is worst to the local rice growers just recovering from the "El Niño" is their inability to recoup their losses as the NFA couldn't buy their lately grown stock.

Former USec Ordoñez revealed that to address the shortage of the "El Niño", 400,000 metric tons of rice importation was much more than the needed buffer stock because the NFA imported 3 trillion metric tons. This over-stock still gluts the NFA bodegas, and yet, even now there are 200,000 metric tons of Vietnam rice to further glut the over-supply. And still, then DFA Secretary Arthur Yap had the poker face to wash his hands off the rice import wastage.

In reference to the 2008 literally rotten 10,000 metric tons and huge supply of worm-infested stocks, some government personnel suggested feeding them to the public school children. What stupid and cruel thought! Why sacrifice the school children? Why not feed them to the corrupt rice importers and the NFA personnel in cahoots with them instead? (To be continued)

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