THE thumbs-down order issued by Malacañang against high-salaried officials of government-owned and controlled corporations has again exposed a bad side of our character as demonstrated by some people in public service.
While some of them have publicly signified their intention of complying with the presidential directive to reduce their fabulous salaries and allowances to reasonable limits, not a few of them, in private, persistently stand pat on the legitimacy of their perks.
We have done nothing illegal, they chorus.
According to newspaper reports, quoting the Budget Department, most GOCC officials and executives, each receives between
R5 million and R9 million a year.
The justification for such huge pay is their exemption from the salary standardization scale for civil service officials and employees.
Their salaries and allowances, under their own charters, are determined by their respective board of directors which, by the way, they also head.
They practically sign their own paychecks, Budget Secretary Emilia Boncadin said.
But it is not the legality of their generous remunerations that is at issue here: It is the critical factor of morality in public service.
The issue at stake, especially at this time of financial turmoil, is the loses of public faith and the willingness to trust officials who tenaciously cling to legalism while losing their moral breath and getting confused and disoriented.
The exception serves the rule but generally, there is nothing more reprehensible than morally impaired persons involved in public affairs.
While true, as Secretary Boncodin said that President Gloria Arroyo could only talk with the GOCC executives, and hope that they would respond favorably, it is a fact that all along they knew that they were taking unfair advantage of government finances under the legal shelter provided by their charters which at the same time they also pervert.
How could such deliberate, wholesale destruction of moral values in public service be legal?
President Arroyo is best known for her strong character and leadership; she should not allow these officials to show off their delicadeza by resigning en masse, laughing.
She should fire them now and reap the people’s applause.
