Press Release
January 28, 2014

MIRIAM DARES PALACE TO BARE SOLONS'
P1.4 M MONTHLY TOTAL INCOMES

Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago, in one of her rare appearances in the Senate last Monday, dared her colleagues to support a legal provision making it mandatory for government to publish in a website, not only the basic salary, but also the allowances and other sources of personal income of all public officials, both elected and appointed.

She issued the challenge while interpellating Sen. Grace Poe on the proposed Freedom of Information bill.

"The basic monthly salary of a senator is P90,000. But if you add all other legitimate sources of income such as allowances and honoraria, the total monthly income of a senator could be placed at some P1.4 million," she said.

The senator said that this amount came from computations made by the Senate finance and administrative services department.

Santiago said that if the proper information is published in a government website, the voters would know during election period whether they want to pay that much for the services of a person who might not even be a high school graduate.

"There are some senators who did not finish high school or college. Do we really want to pay them this high a salary? That is a valid concern that voters might want to address, if they have access to information," the feisty senator said.

Santiago also said that she wants the public to compare the monthly income of the highest paid public official, the President, with the income of the lowest paid janitor in the bureaucracy.

"In the corporate world, there is an algorithm for determining how much should be the salary of the highest ranking officer, because it cannot be more than the salary of the lowest employee, when multiplied by a certain factor. That should also be the practice in the public sector," she said.

The senator said that in the "new normal" of official transparency and good governance, there is no more room for the practice of giving out MOOE funds to individual officials.

MOOE stands for Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses which are disbursed to senators on a monthly basis.

"It is long past overdue to dismantle the MOOE which is a secret source of additional income for every senator," Santiago said.

"We should tear apart the veil of secrecy which covers total incomes of politicians. A public website should allow the citizen to access every senator's sources of income, including MOOE, chairmanship of certain committees, membership in the Commission on Appointments, or in the oversight committees," she said.

Santiago trained her guns not only at the Congress and the cabinet, but also on government-owned or controlled corporations.

"It is urgent to stop corporate greed in the state bureaucracy. Those people help themselves to outrageous allowances and bonuses as if the government is an enterprise for profit. That is a sclerotic view of public service," she said.

On questions by the media, Santiago said that she first made her call for disclosure of all Senate emoluments, as long ago as 1996, when she was first elected senator.

"I was met not only with stony silence, but also with outright hostility by all senators at that time, except Sen. Juan Flavier," she said.

She added that in 1996, all members of the Senate secretariat were prohibited from giving any information on senators' incomes, even to a senator like herself.

"It was a very lonely mission for me in 1996, but now we have social media, and public opinion is outraged over secret sources of incomes, both licit and illicit. This is why I am taking up this advocacy again," Santiago said.

Santiago also total reporters that in 1996, she obtained Senate permission to lease her extension office in her own office building, at a very low rental, but senators opposed her move to issue an administrative circular allowing the practice to be authorized in writing.

"Sure enough, recently one of my political enemies tried to invent a scandal against me, but I was immediately upheld by the Senate legal office. That is the problem with non-transparency, particularly when politics is driven by malice," she said.

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