Trillanes: I’m not Senate’s biggest spender

I am writing in reference to the opinion column of former Senator Ernesto Maceda entitled “JPE: A good Senate President,” which appeared in your newspaper last Saturday, June 8, 2013, as well as on the online version of your newspaper.

The article mentioned that I am supposedly the No. 1 spender in the Senate with a total expenditure of P57 million in 2011. This is misleading and warrants clarification. The Commission on Audit (COA) has released the 2011 Audit Report on the “Itemized List of Amounts Paid to and Expenses Incurred for each Senator” which was also published in your newspaper in February 2013.

I would like to state for the record that I have never been the biggest spender in the Senate during my stint as a senator since 2007. In fact, in contrast to the claims of Senator Maceda, it is Senator Juan Ponce Enrile who is on the top of the list as the biggest spender with a total expenditure of P118,306,463.65, based on the aforesaid 2011 COA Report. I am on the distant fifth in the said list, with Senator Enrile’s expenses being more than double the amount spent by my office.

Moreover, while the published audited report provided the accurate computation of the items listed therein, it is just a partial overview of each senator’s real expenditure. It covered only the “office expenses” and “regular committee expenses” of each senator. These figures did not account for the expenses of Oversight Committees, as well as the realigned budget for Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE) from the unfilled plantilla positions for the staff of the senators, which are also part of the senators’ total expenses, and thus, should be included in the audited report. If these would have been taken into consideration, I would surely be one of the senators with the least expenditure.

The article of Senator Maceda mentioned that I should explain and account where and how I spent the budget allotted for my office. I would like to put into record that I have always been transparent with my office’s expenditures, which are carefully scrutinized by COA every year. If only Senator Maceda checked with the COA, we could have obtained copies of the expenditures of my office and he would have found out that my office’s expenditures have always passed COA’s annual review.

 I would also like to state that the reason my office ranks among the highest in terms of expenses in the Senate is because the fact that I have filled up the full staff allocation as mandated by the Senate for each Senator.

Needless to state, my office budget was spent judiciously and enabled me to become one of the most productive legislators during the 14th and 15th Congress, with no less than 734 bills and resolutions filed, 38 have been passed into law. I also ranked 2nd among my colleagues at the Senate both in terms of the most number of national bills sponsored and committee hearings conducted despite the fact that I spent the first three years of my term under detention. All of these would not have been possible without the help of my staff.

Allow me to state that I believe that the issue on the handling of the Senate bonuses is not about the disparity of amounts given to the senators as Christmas bonus; it is about the arbitrary and whimsical handling of the funds that was left to Senate President Enrile that, by my estimate, amounted to around P500 million, after his release of the said bonus to the senators.

In line with this, what should be scrutinized and must be accounted for is the total Maintenance and Other Operating Expenses (MOOE) of Senator Enrile that amounted to around P800 million, which can be liquidated by mere certification only. It is these dubious disbursements of government funds which all of us should be concerned about.

In the interest of truth and fairness, I hope that your good office will publish my side with equal prominence as the column of Senator Maceda where the unwarranted allegations against me appeared. — Sen. ANTONIO ‘SONNY’ F. TRILLANES IV