What have our congressmen done?
The people spend millions of public funds every month to finance each congressman. What have they done? Considering that next year is an election year, and our incumbent representatives will again ask us to give them another mandate, today is the opportune time for us to ask them, in fact, to require them, to publish to us in details an official report of their expenditures and accomplishments. This is not to be ignored, nor to be taken lightly. The people have the right to know what legislations they have proposed, voted for and passed to help their districts and the nation as a whole. We thus challenge our honorable gentlemen and ladies to respond.
The report should be anchored on their accomplishments versus their promises, and their achievements versus their budgets. The people have the right to demand from their representative a cost benefit analysis of what have these elected officials specifically done to their towns, their barangays, and their peoples. They should lay down their cards on the table, explain to the people any variance between their platforms, and what they have really accomplished. They should account for every minute they are paid for to work, and for every centavo they spend out of public funds. Remember, these are tax money.
First of all, they should explain their attendance records in all House sessions. Many of them are habitual absentees. A lot of them do not attend committee hearings, and some merely have their attendance checked and then proceed to leave Congress to do their own business. Some of our representatives engage in private businesses. They should show evidence to the people that they do not use official facilities for communication and transportation to manage and supervise their own business operations. They should, in fact, disclose any conflict of interests.
Second, congressmen should report to the people on how many bills and resolutions they have authored, how many privilege speeches they have delivered concerning some burning issues that directly affect their districts. They have to submit duly authenticated reports on their committee performance, how many they are chairing and how many they are members of. And what have they accomplished at committee levels? It is not enough that they give dole-outs to the people. They should present a strategic rehabilitation plan after calamities.
If the congressmen respect their constituencies, they should not look at them with condescension and merely distribute goods and money. They should render an intelligent report on what returns on investment they are giving to the district and the people in exchange for public funds spent by them. The congressmen should stop treating the people as mendicants with outstretched hands begging for dole-outs, just like how the DSWD insults the people with cash transfers.
It is high time for the sovereign Filipino people to assert their powers over their public servants. If we indeed are the "boss," as the President used to say, then let us make them report to us, in details and under oath, on what really they have done as the servants of the people. No ifs and no buts.
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