VIEWPOINTS
GOCC
It might be good to take a realistic and practical look into the so called “Government Owned and Controlled Corporations” (GOCCs). This objective consideration is more in accord with on-the-ground factors than in subservience to both legal provisions and legalistic perspectives. After the last administration that people in general, identified with graft and corruption incarnate in governance for almost a decade, the GOCCs – a good number of the 36 of them – have been gradually yet definitely unmasked in their gross greed plus callous conscience, especially in terms of the their apparently focal appointed chief executive and the latter’ close minions.
Lo and behold, bonuses galore not to mention incredibly fat salaries plus loaded perks – plus many other scandalous benefits. Downright unethical conduct particularly in terms of expensive self-services, not to mention apparent corporate untouchable stance in the matter of self-given personal advantages and supposedly official benefits. The said executives and their closed-in subordinates in fact nauseously bled the GOCCs concerned of their assets.
Thus is it that some of the said Corporations have not only become paper tigers and empty shells. They have become extra expensive to sustain while being basis socio-economic liabilities viz., disastrous in their rationale and operation, below zero in their performance rating.
The government is “by the people, of the people, for the people.” The Philippine government is a “republican democracy” whereby it’s precisely the people who ultimately hold and exercise sovereign rule. A public office is a “public trust.” And public funds are basically intended for “public welfare.” While the government can constitutionally, legally and judicially “own” and “control” corporations, in the light of objective truth and practical reality however, some of the light of the questions that come to mind are the following: Where are the people in such government created “owned” and “controlled” Corporations? Are these Corporations not ultimately funded by public funds which their appointed Officials precisely feast upon and waste? Where is social justice in such lamentable and shameful corporate shenanigans? The naked truth in the matter is that they become the glaring symbols of social injustice and inequity.
When the government raises taxes, where does the money come? When it incurs debts, who pay? When it is bankrupt, who suffer? When certain GOCC have not simply become non-performing assets but in effect emerge as the milking cows of their respective chief honchos, who eventually bear the loses and shame even of such of such administrative debacles? The government? Come on! Be real!*
