The Senate finance committee called on President Benigno S. Aquino III on Tuesday to suspend all the fat, excessive, and obscene bonuses and other benefits that officials and board members of government-owned and –controlled corporations (GOCCs) and government financial institutions (GFIs) are expected to approve this year.

This would start the six-year Aquino administration on the right track government-owned and –controlled corporations (GOCCs) and government financial institutions (GFIs) are expected to approve this year.

This would start the six-year Aquino administration on the right track in so far as government finances are concerned, Sen. Franklin M. Drilon, committee chairman, said.

The forecast 2011 budget deficit of the national government is expected to hit the P325-billion level. The Aquino administration is now into its third month starting this Wednesday.

The Drilon committee also heard “horror” stories at the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) where GOCC officials got a 25th-month bonus and about 14 other forms of bonuses such as anniversary, productivity, performance, privatization, efficiency, scholarship, mid-year, rate-rebasing, regular and corporate Christmas bonuses, including family week allowance. Even an MWSS driver was accorded a car plan.

Meanwhile, the appointment of officer-in-charge Macra Cruz is under review amid pending graft cases before the Office of the Ombudsman.

Presidential Spokesman Edwin Lacierda said Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Secretary Rogelio Singson has started to review the performance of Cruz who was designated to temporarily head the agency last July.

Cruz and other top MWSS officials are under fire for the alleged excessive salaries and benefits despite the agency’s financial difficulties. Cruz previously serve deputy administrator of the MWSS under the Arroyo administration.

“He (Singson) mentioned they are evaluating the performance of Macra Cruz and they are evaluating the various cases filed before the Ombudsman,” Lacierda said.

“She has various cases in the Ombudsman so they will make a decision as they are reviewing the case in the Ombudsman,” he added.

As for Drilon, an issuance of a presidential fiat would stop “these practices which are grossly prejudicial to the public… These immoral and indecent practices will be stopped; (and) we will be crafting a law but it will not be an easy piece of legislation but we will try our best to cover all these practices and come up with a rule that will prevent a repetition of this indecent practices in GOCCs.’’

Estimates of these questionable benefits run into hundreds of millions of pesos to billions of pesos.

Asked about the tens of millions of pesos that retired Gen. Thelmo Cunanan, SSS president had received for three years ending in 2009, Drilon said Cunanan should return these excessive benefits he received that were not approved by Malacanang based on Memorandum Order No. 20 signed by former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in 2001.

MO 20 states that benefits of GOCC and GFI officials should not be more than twice what a Cabinet secretary gets.

Drilon was referring to the P66 million that Cunanan received for exercising his stock option as board director of Philex Mining where SSS had made investments in, Drilon replied” ‘’yes.’’

“He could not have exercised that option without the SSS pension fund who should have been given the option to exercise that option and therefore increase the holdings of the SSS pension fund in Philex,’’ he said.

During a post-inquiry press briefing, Drilon said that three SSS officials received P46.3 million in bonuses in 2009 from Union Bank. These officials were Cunanan, Romulo Neri and Sergio Apostol, former presidential legal adviser of the Arroyo administration.

Cunanan maintained that he bought the Philex stocks from his own pocket but Drilon brushed off this claim.

“It is about time to impose certain rules in view of this grossly…the bonuses what we see there is a clear need for a law,’’ he explained, adding that his committee would be hiring the services of experts since the legislation he planned to craft would not be an easy one. (With a report from Genalyn D. Kabiling)