Gov’t widening gap with the citizenry

Malacañang’s knee-jerk reaction is to dispute official statistics of a widening gap between rich and poor,. The presidential spokesman rants about overall income rises: eight percent in the low level, 4.3 in the middle, and 10.4 in the high. All were above the 3.2-percent inflation rate, he says, therefore no expanding gap between high and low.

Double talk, or just confused about income increase and inequity? The figures from the National Statistics Coordinating Board are clear. The low-level income is below the poverty line, P7,821 a month; high is 10 times more, P78,210; the gap: P70,389. Increase P7,821 by eight percent (P8,501), and P78,210 by 10 percent (P86,900), the gap widens to P78,399. And oh, the starting figure of P7,851 is for a poor family of five; the P78,210 is for one rich individual!

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Double standards widen the gap between the government and the governed. Examples are in today’s hot news. Like, the calls to abolish the Barangay Youth Council (Sangguniang Kabataan) since it only initiates the youngsters in corrupt public contracting. At once a congressman suggested that the SK be deprived of its automatic one-tenth of barangay funds, to erase the temptation for kickbacks. Yet no one is proposing to scrap the P200-million annual pork barrel per senator and P70 million per congressman. Not even in the wake of reports that P10 billion had been looted in five years through fake NGOs.

Congress recently legislated basic wages for housemaids, professedly for their social security. Many middle class households had to fire stay-in maids, and hired cheaper live-outs. Net effect: the former stay-ins became live-outs who now have to buy food, clothing, toiletries, and bed space, forgo paid vacation leaves — and still not earn the basic wage and social security.

The Social Security System took advantage of the new law to enforce an older, little-known one. That 1993 law requires employers to register themselves and their maids as such; deduct and remit the maids’ and their counterpart contributions, all the way back to the day of hiring, with penalties for late filing. In the end, the maids told the employers to forgo the filing, since they can’t afford the salary deductions anyway.

Another recent law imposes stricter measures on gun ownership. The registrant, old or new, tested or untested, now must take more tests and secure more clearances. It disregards the fact that 650,000 of the 1.2 million gun owners have not renewed their licenses precisely because of the tough, costly process. No mention too about the 550,000 unlicensed firearms, mostly high-powered, in the hands of criminals and terrorists.

Yet right after its enactment and a congressman shooting himself in the chest at the Batasan, and consequent cries for gun control, what did the lawmakers say? As one, they cried that they be allowed to carry firearms inside public buildings, for they are special.

The executive branch worsens the government-citizen gap. Order a book or a month’s meds by mail from abroad, and Customs withholds release at the post office until duties, double the price of the goods, are paid. Yet the agency lets off the hook smugglers of steel bars, rice, vegetables, diseased Chinese pork, and jewels by the dozens or hundreds of container vans.

The BIR recently required all individual and corporate issuers of official receipts to change their old ones. It’s to ferret out counterfeiters, but the agency didn’t hold an info drive. When by last June only a few had complied, the BIR extended the deadline by two months, but fined everyone, compliant or not, P1,500. Ignored, meanwhile, are two former PNP chiefs who have erected in their hometowns — from mysterious incomes — eight-story resort hotels with scenic elevators facing the beach. Meanwhile, too, Metro Manila’s two water concessionaires worry not about income taxes, or travel and fine-dining expenses, even office decor and sundries like flowers and pastries, since the government allows them to pass these on to customers.

Agencies abet price fixing by oil companies, and illegal mining by Chinese spies. They go out of their way to save drug mules from execution in other lands, but do nothing for the tens of thousands duped by wealthy sellers of fake education plans. The police flag down new cars without license plates — the government has run out of it — yet let off trucks with “kambal plaka (shared plates).” And oh, policemen’s private cars are not even registered. Meanwhile, lawmakers get plates free, numbered 7 or 8, like the one installed on a Porsche scooting around Metro Manila. They will ban certain plate numbers not only one but two days a week on EDSA, but retain the 9,000 illegal buses out of the total 12,000. They demoted an Army colonel for leading 19 men to death in battle, but have not gone after the Moro renegade who had ambushed and beheaded them.

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Probably the worst widener of the gap between the government and the citizens is the judiciary. That branch expects law obedience, but exempts itself, as in the case of Marinduque Rep. Regina Reyes.

Reyes had won against several opponents, foremost of whom is a son of Supreme Court Justice Presbitero Velasco. That man had accused Reyes of foreign citizenship, but the Comelec found no merit in the case, so let her run — and proclaimed her when she won by over 4,000 votes.

Persistent, Velasco’s son took the case to the SC, which accepted it even though, by constitutional rule, post-proclamation congressional cases should be with the House of Reps Electoral Tribunal. Still, seven justices voided Reyes’s proclamation, and ordered the Comelec to uphold Velasco’s son. The four dissenters noted two more constitutional breaches. One is on deprival of due process, since Reyes was not allowed to show her many proofs of Filipino citizenship. The other concerns the effectivity date of Reyes’s term, for the ponente claimed, and the majority six agreed, that she can still be un-proclaimed until the formal start of Congress session on the morning of the President’s State of the Nation, July 22. Forgotten was the Constitution’s rule that all elective officials start their terms at noon of June 30. (The SC ruling makes usurpers of all 292 congressmen and 12 senators who took office on that day.)

There is one other constitutional breach -— by Justice Velasco no less. Presumably he recused himself from the case handled by his college fraternity and dorm bunkmate, and former court sidekick. But in the last election he made his wife, two offspring, and an in-law run as nominees in one party-list. With the son already a congressman, this smacked of political dynasty building -— clearly banned by the Constitution.

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With half a million hits in less than a month, the rock band Abra’s song, “Ilusyon,” reflects the youth’s social disillusion. Check it out on YouTube: http://youtu.be/MXr5QvS_gSE

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Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ (882-AM).

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