"GSIS President and General Manager Winston Garcia demanded yesterday (30 April 2008) full transparency and accountability in the operations, transactions and contracts entered into by the Manila Electric Company (Meralco)."

GSIS members are demanding the same of Garcia.

"Lamenting Meralco manage-ment’s ‘dirt rag’ treatment of GSIS despite its four seats in the utility’s 11-member board, Garcia said the GSIS is fed up with the lack of transparency prevailing at Meralco."

The 1.2 million GSIS members also lament the ‘dirt rag’ treatment they get and are fed up with the lack of transparency prevailing in GSIS.

"Garcia categorically denied that GSIS is out to wrest control of Meralco either for itself or for the Philippine government, explaining that the latter has a long-standing privatization policy."

Thank heavens!

***

Jack Smith Jr. (Jack.Smith@-lacity.org) whose 87-year-old father has not received his GSIS pension for a long time now, wrote:

"We’ve been writing letters and making phone calls (to GSIS) without success. Letters and phone calls are not answered. But through your newspaper we can now at least see some silver lining for the pensioners/retirees. I suggest that the pensioners/retirees will commit to memory the name of Ms. Ella Valencerina, vice president, Public Affairs Office, for her ‘instant action’ to help them. I hope she will imbue this laudable public service attitude to her staff. Although we still have not actually received the cold cash, we’re happy with the thought that someone is ‘helping us’. Again, in behalf of my father Jack P. Smith and the entire Smith clan, thank you Mr. Arcilla for providing us the forum to ventilate our frustration. To Ms. Valencerina, thank you and wishing for your continued support to all pensioners and retirees. To Malaya, more power and continued success."

You are welcome, Jack. I hope that as of this writing, your father has already received his long overdue pension. Sad to say though that Ambassador Rodolfo Arizala, Ms. Julieta Posadas, Ms. Soledad Parial and Floro Pimentel, old-age pensioners all, have not yet received any feedback from the GSIS.

Neither have Valeriano Almazan (valeriano_almazan@yahoo.com), Eduardo Jimmy P. Quilang (ejpquilang@philrice.gov.ph), Eusebio Dizon (drbongdizon@yahoo.com), Ms. Sylvia P. Reyes (spmreyes612@yahoo.com), Rommel Rodriguez (rodriguez.rommel@gmail.com) and Benjamin Gerodias (bs23gerodias@yahoo.com).

Wouldn’t we all be happy to hear from Ms. Valencerina soon?

***

Due to their great number, there must be some grain of truth in the complaints I receive periodically from Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) personnel.

The complaints concern foreign assignments, cross-postings, extensions of tours of duty abroad, extensions of services well beyond the retirement age of 65, promotions, favoritism, etc.

To be sure, such complaints existed even before the watch of Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo. The big difference between then and now lies mainly in the number of complaints and in the degree of the consequent demoralization among the staff.

Romulo’s defenders claim that never in the history of the DFA has so many benefits through salary and allowance increases had come the way of the DFA staffers. Maybe, but that is really nothing to crow about since that’s part of his job and everyone enjoys them, including the favored ones.

In any case, that is no justification for the numerous infractions of existing rules and regulations. Never in the history of the DFA have there been more extensions of the six-year tour of duty of personnel assigned abroad or extensions of services of personnel beyond 65 years of age than now. Neither have there been more cases of favoritism or more political ambassadors appointed than now.

I realize that not all of these infractions were of Romulo’s own doing, just as he wasn’t really the only one responsible for the adjustments in allowances. His predecessors laid the groundwork for them.

But has he ever taken the time to personally review papers given to him for signature and approval by his immediate staff, instead of completely relying on their word?

Or has he ever stood up to his boss and other power-wielders and told them that what they want were not only illegal but will also cause widespread demoralization in the Department?

Or is he only interested in saving his job? Surely, he must realize that blindly following such orders or requests will not ensure his indefinite stay in the cabinet. The appointing authority has other things to consider. Is he safe in the impending cabinet revamp?

***

Speaking of the cabinet revamp, the consensus is that it is nothing to look forward to. To begin with, what can a new cabinet secretary meaningfully accomplish in the last two minutes of Arroyo’s regime? If it is solely meant to pay political debts, everybody believes it shouldn’t be done. It will only prove more expensive and damaging to poor Juan dela Cruz.

Incidentally, a little bird told me that retiring AFP chief Gen. Hermogenes Esperon reportedly wants to head the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA). If true and he is appointed as such, he will have a fixed tenure of six years, thus making it technically difficult, if not impossible, for the next chief executive to dismiss him. Ok, Sir!

***

Ms. Gloria Arroyo’s directive to dole out P1,400 every month to some 300,000 poor families is either hare-brained or a really smart move or both.

Seeing as she fancies herself as a good economist, I’m sure she knows it is hare-brained. She knows it is a band-aid solution to a looming economic crisis in our midst.

That she did it just the same proves she is not the bad politician that she claims she is.

As columnist Antonio Abaya said recently, with the Cha-cha train seemingly chug-chugging inexorably to its unknown ultimate destination before 2010, courtesy of Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr., the dole-out scheme definitely could only redound to the benefit of Arroyo and her minions at absolutely no expense to them!

Having invited the House whose majority is pro-Arroyo to join in, what makes Pimentel think the cha-cha train will not head in the direction of a parliamentary instead of a federal form of government?

As Mr. Abaya suggests, what can stop Ms. Arroyo from doing a Putin in such an eventuality. (Russian President Vladimir Putin, barred from running for another term, "installed" his crony as president and made himself prime minister.)

***

Senate Blue Ribbon committee chairman Alan Cayetano has ordered the preparation of the report on the odious ZTE-NBN deal hearings even before the Supreme Court has decided on the Senate’s motion for reconsideration (MR) of the tribunal’s decision on the invocation of executive privilege by Ms. Arroyo via CHED chairman Romulo Neri.

(It makes you wonder – does Press Secretary Ignacio "Two Tapes" Bunye have a point when he said that all the Senate hearings are held only in "aid of grandstanding"?)

Does Cayetano know that the Supreme Court will deny the MR? What if it doesn’t? Does he then reconvene the hearings?

I think Cayetano should wait for the Supreme Court decision at least before rendering a report on the hearings.

***

Today is the 8th day of the second year of Jonas Burgos’ disappearance.

I have said it before and I will keep on saying it: When all is said and done, it will be the extrajudicial killings and the enforced disappearances that will continue to haunt Ms. Arroyo long after she is no longer in power.