Freebies and freeloaders

The brouhaha over Senator Juan Ponce Enrile’s statements about the travel record of Presidential Commission on Good Government Chairman Camilo Sabio over the past 18 months brings to mind the President’s 2004 trip to China where the official party included nannies and Chinese business tycoons. The howl of publicity prompted certain quarters to issue statements that travel expenses of private individuals were paid out of their own pockets. But in the case of Sabio and the other PCGG underlings with curious travel records, the criticisms have been met with stony silence.

It’s not as though any of this is new. Almost every government official, including senators and congressmen, have traveled abroad during their incumbency and the public has rarely been told, if at all, how the country has benefitted from those trips. It’s an offshoot of the nature of discretionary funds. Where there is money that isn’t targeted for any specific project or service and how it is spent is left to the sole discretion of he who has control over the funds, well, you get the idea. It becomes easier to understand too why, with a few exceptions, no government official — from the municipal council member to the President—will willingly give up his pork barrel allocation.

It’s the freebie mentality and the Philippines — no, the world — is full of freeloaders. Everyone wants the good life but does not want to spend his own money to experience it. The curious thing is that even those who can afford to spend prefer that someone else does. And this attitude is not peculiar among government officials. It is practiced from the highest echelons down to the lowest ranks, in public and private sectors. Professional critics will, of course, be quick to point out that it is a legacy of a corrupt government, a bad example that people follow. But the converse is just as likely — that government officials’ penchant for freebies is an attitude that they carry over from their pre-government days.

It starts with little things and friendly lines like Mang-libre ka naman! or Magpa-inom ka naman! that we hear every day from the neighborhood tambay to the call center agents to the rank-and-file government employees. It really has nothing to do with not being able to afford the drink. It’s a feeling that one is being wise by making someone else pay. That wa-is or wise is actually the equivalent of panglalamang or panggugulang is conveniently brushed aside.

This attitude is prevalent even among corporate executives and highly-paid professionals. For instance, it is not uncommon for a corporate board to hold an executive or directors’ meeting over a very extended weekend in Hong Kong, Singapore or Phuket, all expenses paid for by corporate funds which, of course, are deducted from the stockholders’ dividends. Never mind that the meeting can be conducted in the company office’s conference room right here in town. Someone always comes up with a justifiable reason to hold it in some swank resort, preferably overseas, without costing the directors and officers a single centavo. Oh, yes, sometimes wives and children tag along too as part of the company expense account. But since it is within the power of the board to make the decision, what can the stockholders do? Chances are, they won’t even know about it until the next annual stockholders’ meeting and the item will be in small print in some back page of the report that they will probably miss it altogether.

There are cases too when the exercise of the freebie mentality is not limited to a once- or twice-a-year board meetings. In some corporations, the company-paid driver ends up as a family driver and the executive’s secretary is actually doing the executive’s kids’ school projects, taking care of his dry-cleaning, coordinating with the caterers and florists for his wedding anniversary party and even buying a wedding anniversary gift for his wife because he’s too busy playing golf using the company-paid golf club membership account. Even the company car, with company-paid fuel, ends up as a family car.

Now, transpose the above scenario, substitute government for the corporation and the board and officers with elected government officials. Do we bother making a distinction between stockholder’s dividends and taxpayers’ money? Whether you’re an abusive corporate director who likes to use company funds for your own pleasure or a government official who likes to travel using government funds, the result is the same. It’s stealing because you’re using money that is not yours but only placed at your discretion as a matter of trust. You’re trusted with someone else’s money with the mandate to use it wisely and make it grow but, instead, you use it to live the good life.