Best Reassurance: Ensuring Financial Transparency
The passage of the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act Two promises economic recovery, financial assistance to all institutions affected, and allocation of funds for a more detailed COVID-19 response. However, its past actions cast uncertainty over the effectivity of this newly-signed emergency law — specifically, how such a law was, and will be spent.
In fact, doubts still exist over how the predecessor to the aforementioned act was effectively spent — and I am not alone in this sentiment. Back in July, seven senators have already called for the Commission on Audit (COA) to tabulate all the expenses made by the government under the Bayanihan act. But to this day, how the funds were spent is still unknown to us — only a rebut from the Palace, saying that they have ‘nothing to hide’ yet still remains in hiding of how funds were spent. The state audit must be really time-consuming that it took a month and a half and still counting to do.
What is even more alarming is who will be hurt by this lack of transparency, and it will not be the government nor their stakeholders — rather, it will be the people who will be feeling the pinch. We already saw instances of this happening — reports of how the Social Amelioration Program (SAP), a program under the Bayanihan law, was poorly executed in many parts of the country only prove this. For example, a jeepney driver who had to walk all the way from Caloocan to Quezon City was met with a cutoff when the concerned agency said that his name was not in the list. This rightfully caused an outcry, but had this gone unnoticed, it would be even more devastating to someone impoverished like him.
But that’s not the only case of financial assistance seemingly disappearing. My friend all the way from the same city told me how they were still had yet to receive any form of a second wave of financial assistance. Though they were not as impoverished as the aforementioned jeepney driver, these situations describe exactly how much this lack of financial transparency by the government could do to the unfortunate — the damage done could be severely devastating due to this uncertainty.
That is why this lack of financial transparency should not go on. With the Bayanihan Two promising more aid with programs such as the “Plant, Plant, Plant” program, as well as subsidies and incentives for all concerned stakeholders, uncertainty regarding how these funds will be spent should not be tolerated. A state audit should be done as soon as possible so that we do not have to worry about where the money was spent. This is the best reassurance the government could do to its woe-filled citizens, whom I assume are already fed-up with all the blunders as the government rushed its COVID-19 pandemic with vague plans.
Hope remains for the blunder-filled government though as it begins to roll out its promised initiatives in the recently-signed Bayanihan Two. But for me, I sincerely hope that the shortcomings that were committed under the first act would not be repeated again. I trust that the government do its job this time as we flatten the curve (as per a University of the Philippines expert) and would redeem itself even more if it heeds to House Minority Leader Benny Abante’s suggestion of having an oversight committee. So far though, the Palace still has yet to reply, but I hope they do not sit on this really good suggestion that ensures check and balance.
The signing of the Bayanihan Act Two seems to start off fresh after months of being sat on by Congress. However, should they screw this up, they would be left with a more disdained citizenry and an already impoverished population even more impoverished due to incompetence by the government due to the flaws that slipped through the lack of financial transparency under Bayanihan. If the Palace’s claim that they had ‘nothing to hide,’ they would reassure their citizens in the best way they could reassure their pandemic-stricken citizens, not through empty words, but through ensuring financial security.
