Highest paid government servant

By REY O. ARCILLA
MALAYA

‘The distinction belongs to GSIS head Robert Vergara with salaries and allowances of P16.36 million in 2012. Wow!’

GSIS President Robert Vergara

Great Britain’s Queen Elizabeth is due to receive a raise of 5 percent in her government grant next year.

Here, one fellow who does not need a raise in his remuneration next year is GSIS president/general manager Robert Vergara who turned out to be the highest paid government functionary in our midst.

As reported recently by Rappler, according to the Commission on Audit (COA) Vergara last year received P16.36 million in salaries and allowances (almost double the P8.32 million he received in 2011) broken down as follows: P9.65 million in basic salaries for 15 months; P4.97 million in “bonuses, incentives and benefits”; P1.684 million allowances; P7,500 personal economic relief allowance (he needs this?!), and P51,000 listed only as “Others.”

As a former member of the GSIS, I find that amount obscene and unconscionable. I wonder if Vergara knows how much the average government employee is paid.

I understand this fellow was a hotshot investment banker based in Hong Kong before he was tapped for the GSIS job by President Noynoy Aquino. Could he possibly be making more money now than he used to?

This is also the same fellow who finds it convenient to simply “dedma” (ignore) another finding by COA that has been raised, and continues to be raised, in this space regarding the irregular treatment of remittances of premiums paid by poor government employees. (Please see one of the “Reminders” below.)

Please take note, Mr. President. Your bosses want to know what the real score is on this fellow’s horrendous pay. As a GSIS member yourself, perhaps you should be interested to find out too.

***

Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin says we need “allies vs. bullies”, obviously referring to the United States and China, respectively. He made the statement to justify the government decision for the US and other allies to have open access to our military bases.

Need one remind Gazmin that the US has categorically stated that she is “neutral” in our territorial dispute with China? Just wondering how US presence on our territory will stop China from bullying us.

What if after opening our bases to the US to enable her to once again base her troops, aircraft and warships on our soil, China does not stop her bullying, what then? Do we tell the US to leave again? I guess what we can do for now is to simply watch what happens.

***

Meanwhile, the awkwardly voluble deputy presidential mouthpiece said the government decision (she says it is still a plan which I do not believe) to give the US and other allies (Japan) access to our military bases is not meant to antagonize China.

She said: “At this point, what we do within our territory is perfectly within our rights and as such, we see no reason why it should raise any particular tensions.”

Correct on the first part, but how naïve on the second.

Already, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned that countries with territorial claims in the South China Sea that look for help from third parties will find their efforts “futile”, adding that the “path of confrontation” would be “doomed”.

The deputy mouthpiece also said it’s not only in the Philippines where the US is increasing the “rotational presence” of her forces… as if to justify a move that smacks of a violation of our Constitution.

She further asserted that there has already been an agreement on increased US rotational presence here. Really? When? Covered under what? The Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA)?

As I have said often enough, the VFA which, in my view, is null and void ab initio, does not provide for such arrangements. Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, among others, also says so.

***

Malaysia, our neighbor friendly to the Aquino administration, reportedly said she respects our decision to bring our territorial dispute with China to a UN arbitral tribunal.

Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman who was here recently told Foreign Secretary Albert “Amboy” del Rosario that Malaysia had also resorted to international legal adjudication in the past.

So pray tell, what about Sabah and our conflicting claim with her and others over the Spratlys? Is Malaysia now ready and willing to go to international legal adjudication?

Aman and Del Rosario also called for the immediate start of negotiations on the Code of Conduct (COC) on the South China Sea to be taken up for the umpteenth time at the Asean Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Brunei July 1 and 2.

Assuming there is unanimous agreement among the Asean members on the content of the COC, it would mean nothing unless China is a party to it. And China is not expected to go along with a legally-binding Code in the foreseeable future, notwithstanding what her foreign minister reportedly said in Brunei over the weekend, i.e., that Beijing agreed to hold “official consultations” on the COC with Asean in September.

Be that as it may, I agree we should keep telling China and the whole world that her aggressive actions in the West Philippine Sea jeopardize peace and stability in the region. She should also always bear in mind that as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, she has a special responsibility under the UN Charter to promote and contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security.

***

Truth stranger than fiction?

It would seem so in the case of the greatest democratic nation in the world – the United States.

How many movies have we seen where the US National Security Agency (NSA) is portrayed as an agency more sinister and powerful than even the Central Intelligence Agency and one that spies not only on citizens of other countries but also on Americans. Now, fiction has become truth with the revelations of Edward Snowden.

Snowden who worked with a contractor of the NSA has admitted to giving sensitive information to the Guardian newspaper in Britain and to The Washington Post. They allegedly include lists of machines all over the world NSA hacked, US programs to monitor domestic telephone traffic, as well as activities of Internet users overseas. He also said the NSA “hacks into major Internet pipeline to intercept millions of communications flowing through them each day.”

***

Snowden who is now trying to elude capture by American law enforcers is reportedly ensconced in the transit area of Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow. The Russian government has refused to surrender him to the Americans. Earlier, the Chinese also did when they allowed Snowden to leave Hong Kong.

In the meantime, Snowden asked for and was granted asylum by Ecuador – if he can get there before his pursuers catches up with him.

Questions have been asked why Ecuador. Well, to begin with, it is within the rights of any independent nation to take that kind of action. And as Steve Striffler, in his article for CNN put it, “even one that has historically followed the US lead”. (Striffler is a professor of anthropology and geography at the University of New Orleans.)

Striffler further said:

“(Ecuadorian President Rafael) Correa’s willingness to take on Snowden should be seen for what it is, as a refreshingly principled stand by a small country against a powerful nation engaged in what many see as the political persecution of one of its own citizens.”

Now, that’s a refreshing statement that our leaders should heed.

It will be recalled that Wikileaks head Julian Paul Assange also sought and was granted asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London where he has holed up since June 19, 2012. He has been accused of stealing and publishing US military and diplomatic documents, including dispatches sent by the US Embassy in Manila to Washington that were quite revealing and embarrassing to our government and certain officials. Assange is afraid that once he leaves the Ecuadorian Embassy, the British Government may extradite him to the US to face charges over the diplomatic cables case.

***

Given Snowden’s revelations, I believe it is time we began cleansing sensitive government premises of “bugs” and adopting measures that would prevent eavesdropping and hacking by foreign powers. We should start with Malacañang, the DFA and the DND.

***

Reminders (for Noynoy’s action):

1) Filing of charges against officials of the National Food Authority (NFA) during Arroyo’s illegitimate regime. Noynoy himself said on several occasions that there is documentary evidence to prove the venalities in the past in that agency.

2) Investigation of reported anomalies in the GSIS during the watch of Winston Garcia and ordering his successor, Robert Vergara, to file the proper charges, if warranted, against the former.

Noynoy should also order Vergara to report to him on COA’s findings that at least P4.13 billion in contributions and loan payments made by 12 government offices to the GSIS had not been credited to the offices as of Dec. 31, 2011. COA also said the amount of unrecorded remittances could go much higher because only 36 agencies have so far responded out of the 186 that were sent confirmation requests by government auditors. Of the 36, 27 confirmed “discrepancies” in their premium and loan payments ledgers when compared with those of the GSIS.

There are three questions being raised when remittances, or parts thereof, of government agencies are not recorded by the GSIS on time: a) Where are these huge sums “parked” in the meantime?; b) Do they earn interest?; and c) To where (whom?) does the interest, if any, go?

3) Facilitating the investigation of rampant corruption in the military and police establishments.

4) Expeditious action by the AFP on the case of Jonas Burgos.

***

Today is the 65th day of the seventh year of Jonas Burgos’ disappearance.

Whatever happened to Noynoy’s directive to the National Bureau of Investigation to conduct a “focused, dedicated and exhaustive” probe of what really happened to Jonas? Your bosses are waiting, Mr. President.

***

From an internet friend:

WOMAN’S REVENGE

“Cash, check or charge?” I asked, after folding items the woman wished to purchase. As she fumbled for her wallet, I noticed a remote control for a television set in her purse. “So, do you always carry your TV remote?” I asked.

“No,” she replied, “my husband refused to come shopping with me, and I figured this was the most evil thing I could do to him legally.”

***

Email: roacrosshairs@outlook.com