EDITORIAL - No value for money

Despite the numerous scandals swirling around members of Congress, lawmakers are relentless in pushing for entitlements.

The latest example is the request of Sen. Ronald dela Rosa, who has been AWOL from his Senate duties for the past four months, for his family to use the so-called “Senate Mansion” in Baguio City.

This is reportedly for their attendance at the CSAFP Cup – the shooting competition under the aegis of the Armed Forces of the Philippines chief of staff – scheduled on March 26-29 at the Philippine Military Academy at Fort Del Pilar in Baguio.

Presumably, Dela Rosa won’t be joining his family. So he has been informed by Senate secretary Mark Llandro Mendoza that the request could not be accommodated because the “mansion” can only be used if the senator is present, plus it’s currently under renovation.

Each senator gets about P300,000 a month in basic pay. This excludes the even bigger allowances and benefits. The Senate president gets nearly P400,000 a month.

Compare this to the entry-level monthly pay of less than P30,000 for a public school teacher or over P42,000 for a government nurse. Taxpayers have a right to demand value for money from senators.

Yet Dela Rosa has not been seen at the Senate since November. This is chiefly out of fear that he might follow his patron Rodrigo Duterte to the Scheveningen Prison in The Hague as a “co-perpetrator” in the case of murder as a crime against humanity arising from the bloody war on drugs.

The International Criminal Court has identified several other “co-perpetrators” in the case, notably Dela Rosa’s ally and fellow senator Bong Go. Yet Go has not gone missing, attending Senate sessions regularly and even continuing to travel around the country.

Dela Rosa went into hiding after Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla announced having in his possession a copy of an ICC arrest order for the chief implementer of Duterte’s brutal crackdown on criminality.

Perhaps Dela Rosa is preparing to emerge from hiding. He reportedly signed Senate Resolution 343, urging the executive to have a national contingency plan to address the Middle East crisis.

He also signed the so-called “minority report” on the flood control corruption probe, ahead of the release of the official report of the Senate Blue Ribbon committee. Dela Rosa’s letter dated March 12, requesting the use of the Senate Mansion for his family, also bore his signature.

In a private company, Dela Rosa would have been fired. Tragically, taxpayers are stuck with him, with his colleagues unable and unwilling to discipline him. People can only hope that he will find the decency to give his employers the taxpayers their money’s worth.