Babe's Eye View article

While there's still a budget deficit in government, it has however been substantially reduced with the sale of several assets which gave it a record surplus of P54.1 billion last November. The financial picture is looking much better and there's been talk about the possibility of balancing the budget this coming New Year. But here comes this controversial bonus for Congressmen at P200,000 each. A class act with that fantabulous amount—making people feel totally resentful, to say the least.

Naturally, the big uproar forced Speaker Joe de Venecia to explain that the money is really meant for the Christmas bonus of Congressional staff and not directly for Congressmen. The trouble is, people have already become so sensitive to every act of Congress that not too many people believe Joe de V's explanation.

In the first place, the windfall came from Filipino taxpayers' money, and people are irritated and disgusted at what they perceive to be the insensitivity of our honorable Congressmen. You can't really blame the public because the image of Congress hasn't been very good since time immemorial. They've been embroiled in so many controversies lately, from the "pera sa bayong" to the recent European junket. As a matter of fact, there's a standing Filipino joke that crocodiles are vanishing from the Philippine wild because they are now all in Congress. I must say, not a very good image.

A bonus is given for a job well done—but people are questioning if many of these Congressmen—or their staff for that matter—really deserve it. Lawmakers have become notorious for absenteeism, with important bills delayed because of lack of quorum. This has been a perennial problem that in the past, there were suggestions to prevent Congressmen from traveling abroad while Congress is in session. The "no work, no pay" policy was also suggested, as well as the "shame campaign" with plans to publish the names of the absentee Congressmen, but as always, nothing came out of them.

The previous Congress had 40 sessions from July 2006 to February 2007, but roll call was done in just 21 of them—reportedly with only 19 members present each time. At the beginning of this 14th Congress, it looked like absenteeism was about to be changed with 135 having perfect attendance—but that's still a dismal 56 percent.

Congress is planning to install a P15-million biometric system supposedly to save 1/3 of the time spent on roll calls and to identify absentee and tardy members—but no amount of modernization can change bad habits. And isn't P15 million rather expensive just to prevent absenteeism?

Sure, some of these legislators can argue that they do their jobs, but many counter that it's mostly renaming streets after parents or some other relative, or putting up waiting sheds. The record has been so bad, especially during the 13th Congress, which passed 154 laws with only 39 of national significance—much lower than the national laws passed during the previous Congresses.

The sad part is, there are a lot of good Congressmen, too—especially the new ones—who are getting tainted by all these controversies. Hardworking government people—including members of the military, the police and teachers—have yet to receive the promised P10,000 performance bonus while these legislators have a P200,000 bonus windfall. This is certainly not going to improve the negative image that people have of Congressmen.

There's a Christmas song that goes, "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth..." All the people want for Christmas is for legislators to do their job. If not, these lawmakers shouldn't be surprised if people will be singing "All we want for Christmas is to knock off Congressmen's two front teeth..."

The Inquirer front page story last Thursday about the Philippine STAR getting censured by the Adboard came as a surprise to many including myself. It seems Inquirer took exception to a November ad put up by the Philippine STAR right after the Ad Congress. It looks like the intense rivalry is not only for broadcast, but also for print media, as well.

People have commented that interpretation of that Philippine STAR ad is relative. Judging from 2007 advertising revenues up to October, Philippine STAR's display advertising revenues reached P2.28 billion, higher than the other major dailies—and thus, really got a bigger slice of the advertising pie. It only goes to show a lot of advertisers really prefer the Philippine STAR as their vehicle for newspaper advertising.

Philippine STAR president and CEO Miguel Belmonte told me that the paper's tagline in that particular ad is clear: "Wide influence and reach," in no way implying anything else other than that fact. There is no question the Philippine STAR has become extremely successful since 1986 when it was put up by Max Soliven and Betty Go-Belmonte.

Ramon "RJ" Jacinto, whose band performed at the Philippine STAR Christmas party last Wednesday and who knew Betty Go-Belmonte for many years, was astounded at the large number of employees the Philippine STAR had during the party—filling up the entire ballroom. RJ says this is what you call "totally good karma," attributing this to Mrs. Betty Go-Belmonte who had always been fair with people, showing kindness through the policy of the paper not to lay off anyone, and the generosity she had displayed in the numerous charities she founded.

This tradition has been kept by the Belmonte family. In fact, Miguel says they could have easily automated the paper's operations a long time ago, but they have kept the policy and tradition set by his mother—never to lay off people.