Enriching the anti-poor

Some people in the last administration seem to have gotten their messages and mandates mixed. Ironically, the confusion seems to emanate from an agency whose very name encompasses a vast, however, focused spectrum that clearly spells out its singular objective as well as its singular target market.

The National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) was created under Republic Act (RA) 8425, otherwise known as the “Social Reform and Poverty Alleviation Act” during the incumbency of former President Joseph E. Estrada as an integral part of his focus on the poor.

The NAPC’s name is its most eloquent statement of both its mission and its market.

The objective of civil service is to serve the public. That is what the bureaucracy was set up for and the first beneficiary to the last served by all government employees and factotums are the citizenry, the electorate and the taxpayers that comprise the public. The concepts of self-enrichment and profit are alien. As are greed and avarice. These should have been unmistakably clear, especially for those appointed by former President Benigno Aquino III to the NAPC.

Formerly attached to the Office of the President under the Aquino administration, the agency is now under the supervision of the Cabinet secretary following Executive Order #1 issued by President Duterte last July 4.

As a subset of the public that civil servants are mandated to serve under the NAPC, the focus is on the poor. Again, against such simplified objective, there are no highfaluting and hidden terminologies in the one syllable four-letter word underlying that singular goal. Even as a benchmark for the work mandated, there is really nothing in the word “poor” that should lead to any confusion as who must be served. The need to resort to this rather lengthy and tedious attempt at distinctions among the simplest and shortest words in the English language should not have been necessary save for those intent on bastardizing their mandates.

Self-written and fashioned within the statute that created the agency and the statements of philosophical and conceptual foundations, the NAPC’s objectives are clear. Let us review these with the view of setting these as the benchmark by which a recent controversy that they’ve deliberately stepped on can be judged.

Of the eight provisions under Section 7 of RA 8425 that limits the NAPC’s scope to coordination, submitting reports, recommending policies and measures and providing incentives, there is absolutely nothing in those eight short statements that even hints that the agency can extend its powers beyond being a secretariat.

Given this, we can now understand the rationale and, indeed, the righteousness behind a revamp and reorientation undertaken when the Duterte administration took over the NAPC. We completely support the appointment and initiatives undertaken by the new NAPC head, Chairman and Lead Convenor Liza Maza. It is about time. Obviously the former dispensation, rather than alleviate poverty or at least make a dent on the poverty index, seems to have, in the last six years, directed efforts at enrichment elsewhere, almost toward the opposite direction from where these efforts were designed to benefit.

Officially, the NAPC is only allowed a maximum manpower count of 50 for its plantilla. In the last administration, it was discovered that it had employed consultants and contractuals numbering 161 and 107, respectively, far outnumbering its own workforce. Worse, these consultants were being paid over P5 million a month or, should we work on averages, an average of P450, 000 per consultant, given a 14-month year. These computed amounts further bloat if and when their consultancies are renewed either on six-or an eight-month increments.

Given that systemic poverty has hardly been reduced in the last six years, one starts to wonder who have been condemned to poverty against those who’ve suddenly been enriched.