How Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo creates many new jobs
How Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo creates many new jobs
Updated 10:54pm (Mla time) Oct 24, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the October 25, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
WHO says President Macapagal-Arroyo isn't providing jobs to Filipinos? Isn't she handing out jobs right and left?
And not just ordinary jobs, but jobs in Malacañang-as presidential advisers with Cabinet rank. What advice they will give, nobody (not even the advisers) knows. But we do know that as Cabinet secretaries, they will take home not only fat salaries but also fat allowances, and free service cars, free gasoline, free chauffers, vans full of bodyguards, two or more motorcycle escorts, and the right to appoint relatives as confidential secretaries and chiefs of staff, all paid for by the taxpayers. And the right to be called "Mr. Secretary" and to be saluted by the Palace guards.
I heard another wing is being added to Malacañang Palace because, during Cabinet meetings, the Cabinet members and presidential advisers of Cabinet rank can no longer be accommodated in one place. Also, there is talk that Malacañang wants to reclaim part of the Pasig River and convert it into a parking lot because there is no more parking space for all the luxury vehicles with red plate numbers that converge on Malacañang on the days the Cabinet meet. There are so many of these luxury vehicles with the number "6" that the superstitious in the neighborhood become agitated because the number "666" is said to be the Devil's number and therefore could bring bad luck.
When the Cabinet meet, the Palace guards are placed on high alert not only because of the concentration of "6s" but also because so many top officials gathered in one place become a tempting target for terrorists.
There is also talk that hungry politicians are reluctant to take the position of national treasurer, afraid that they'd have difficulty looking for money to pay for Malacañang's growing payroll.
But what can one do, the President promised to create one million jobs and if private companies won't provide those jobs, why, the government will. Her promise to create jobs must not make a liar out of the President-again. She has promised so often that whenever she promises something, people expect the opposite. That's bad, so I think she has the right to change the people's wrong attitude by surprising them: once in a while, she should fulfill her promises.
But having one million presidential advisers may be a little too much, even for the likes of GMA. So she is creating whole new offices. Then she can hire people not only singly but in batches. The "superbody" Office of External Affairs (OEA) is only one of these. There will be others, don't worry. The President's one-million-job promise will soon be fulfilled.
But where will the government get the money to pay all the new hires? From the Filipinos, where else? There are 80 million of them. If each of them pays a few hundred pesos in taxes, that will make billions of pesos. Anyway, they will pay, whether they like it or not; Congress will see to that-by passing the necessary tax laws.
Besides, many of these taxes they will not recognize at all. They will be hidden in the prices of necessities that people buy every day. People can't eat or go anywhere or do anything without having to pay taxes. You want to relax by smoking a stick of cigarette? You pay tax. You want to forget your woes by getting drunk? You pay tax. You want a can of sardines for your hungry children? You pay tax. Yes sir, like death, taxes are unavoidable.
In fact, even when you die, you have to pay taxes. And your children, whom you will leave behind without a breadwinner and saddled with your debts, will have to pay an inheritance tax.
So don't worry about where to get the payroll money. And if the Treasury goes bust, the President can always order the layoff of hundreds of thousands of rank-and-file government employees so that their pay allocations can be rechanneled to the salaries of the presidential advisers. If worst comes to worst, we can always borrow, as GMA did during her first term. She sailed through that term without anybody getting any wiser, didn't she?
But how will she pay for all the loans? Again, don't worry. That's not her problem. That's the problem of the next president.
* * *
It has become clear why the paratroopers are the elite soldiers in any armed force. We know now why being a paratrooper is coveted by almost every soldier. In fact, it has turned out that every AFP chief of staff is a paratrooper, regardless of whether he comes from the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marines. Each of them is provided with a "golden parachute" upon retirement from the AFP.
The parachute is very expensive. It might as well be literally coated with gold, for it costs as much as P300 million each.
Where does the money to pay for them come from? Where else but from the taxpayers!
* * *
Isn't it eerie that the unfolding "corruption in the military" seems so like the corruption in the civilian government? It is history repeating itself.
The son of an aide of former AFP chief of staff Angelo Reyes has come out to claim that he owns the cock farm on Reyes' lot in Parañaque. This sounds so much like presidential brother-in-law (now congressman) Ignacio "Iggy" Arroyo claiming the Jose Pidal bank deposits as his own, thus taking the heat away from his brother.
Iggy has become a role model of sorts, it seems. Maj. Gen. Carlos F. Garcia's mantra- his right against self-incrimination-before the House committees on defense and banks is an echo of Iggy's own mantra before the Senate-his right to privacy.
Updated 10:54pm (Mla time) Oct 24, 2004
By Neal Cruz
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the October 25, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
WHO says President Macapagal-Arroyo isn't providing jobs to Filipinos? Isn't she handing out jobs right and left?
And not just ordinary jobs, but jobs in Malacañang-as presidential advisers with Cabinet rank. What advice they will give, nobody (not even the advisers) knows. But we do know that as Cabinet secretaries, they will take home not only fat salaries but also fat allowances, and free service cars, free gasoline, free chauffers, vans full of bodyguards, two or more motorcycle escorts, and the right to appoint relatives as confidential secretaries and chiefs of staff, all paid for by the taxpayers. And the right to be called "Mr. Secretary" and to be saluted by the Palace guards.
I heard another wing is being added to Malacañang Palace because, during Cabinet meetings, the Cabinet members and presidential advisers of Cabinet rank can no longer be accommodated in one place. Also, there is talk that Malacañang wants to reclaim part of the Pasig River and convert it into a parking lot because there is no more parking space for all the luxury vehicles with red plate numbers that converge on Malacañang on the days the Cabinet meet. There are so many of these luxury vehicles with the number "6" that the superstitious in the neighborhood become agitated because the number "666" is said to be the Devil's number and therefore could bring bad luck.
When the Cabinet meet, the Palace guards are placed on high alert not only because of the concentration of "6s" but also because so many top officials gathered in one place become a tempting target for terrorists.
There is also talk that hungry politicians are reluctant to take the position of national treasurer, afraid that they'd have difficulty looking for money to pay for Malacañang's growing payroll.
But what can one do, the President promised to create one million jobs and if private companies won't provide those jobs, why, the government will. Her promise to create jobs must not make a liar out of the President-again. She has promised so often that whenever she promises something, people expect the opposite. That's bad, so I think she has the right to change the people's wrong attitude by surprising them: once in a while, she should fulfill her promises.
But having one million presidential advisers may be a little too much, even for the likes of GMA. So she is creating whole new offices. Then she can hire people not only singly but in batches. The "superbody" Office of External Affairs (OEA) is only one of these. There will be others, don't worry. The President's one-million-job promise will soon be fulfilled.
But where will the government get the money to pay all the new hires? From the Filipinos, where else? There are 80 million of them. If each of them pays a few hundred pesos in taxes, that will make billions of pesos. Anyway, they will pay, whether they like it or not; Congress will see to that-by passing the necessary tax laws.
Besides, many of these taxes they will not recognize at all. They will be hidden in the prices of necessities that people buy every day. People can't eat or go anywhere or do anything without having to pay taxes. You want to relax by smoking a stick of cigarette? You pay tax. You want to forget your woes by getting drunk? You pay tax. You want a can of sardines for your hungry children? You pay tax. Yes sir, like death, taxes are unavoidable.
In fact, even when you die, you have to pay taxes. And your children, whom you will leave behind without a breadwinner and saddled with your debts, will have to pay an inheritance tax.
So don't worry about where to get the payroll money. And if the Treasury goes bust, the President can always order the layoff of hundreds of thousands of rank-and-file government employees so that their pay allocations can be rechanneled to the salaries of the presidential advisers. If worst comes to worst, we can always borrow, as GMA did during her first term. She sailed through that term without anybody getting any wiser, didn't she?
But how will she pay for all the loans? Again, don't worry. That's not her problem. That's the problem of the next president.
* * *
It has become clear why the paratroopers are the elite soldiers in any armed force. We know now why being a paratrooper is coveted by almost every soldier. In fact, it has turned out that every AFP chief of staff is a paratrooper, regardless of whether he comes from the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marines. Each of them is provided with a "golden parachute" upon retirement from the AFP.
The parachute is very expensive. It might as well be literally coated with gold, for it costs as much as P300 million each.
Where does the money to pay for them come from? Where else but from the taxpayers!
* * *
Isn't it eerie that the unfolding "corruption in the military" seems so like the corruption in the civilian government? It is history repeating itself.
The son of an aide of former AFP chief of staff Angelo Reyes has come out to claim that he owns the cock farm on Reyes' lot in Parañaque. This sounds so much like presidential brother-in-law (now congressman) Ignacio "Iggy" Arroyo claiming the Jose Pidal bank deposits as his own, thus taking the heat away from his brother.
Iggy has become a role model of sorts, it seems. Maj. Gen. Carlos F. Garcia's mantra- his right against self-incrimination-before the House committees on defense and banks is an echo of Iggy's own mantra before the Senate-his right to privacy.
posted by Dante at 10:01 AM
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