Be Senator, Have Billions

Miriam Defensor-San-tiago is at her best again. But her best is not enough.

Her extensively reported “revelations” on the hundreds-of-million-peso-ways by which a senator could recover his election expenses mentioned too many, but too little. She forgot the most important thing.

Miriam hit the mark. But she spared the jugular. None of the incumbent senators, including the senator-candidates, are squirming and wriggling in fear and terror. They should tremble, more so that the tirades are vintage Miriam. But they are not. There is no rejoinder from the Upper House or any other house. Miriam's blows are not fatal.

What would a sitting senator get in terms of pesos to justify the hundreds of millions spent to win a seat? Salary of P 35,000 a month. Budget for office and staff, P1.7M per month. He could pocket an average of 40% for ghost employees which would amount to about P680,000.00.

For foreign travel and perks, the senator's budget is P760,000 a month. With ghost travels and ghost travelers, the whole amount, or 50%, is free for the taking. With an average of 50% kickback, our good senator keeps more or less P380,000.00 a month.

For committee chairmanships, a senator gets similar budget on top of what he/she gets as a senator. For the annual pork barrel / CDF allocation of P200 million, the senator receives a minimum of 10% commission or SOP from project contractors funded by the pork. But we know that senators get as much as 20%. With an average of 15% for our beloved senator, he gets for himself at least P30 million a year.

Adding up everything, for a single six-year term, a senator could earn P2,520,000.00 in salaries; P48,960,000.00 from ghost employees / office expenses; P54,720,000.00 from ghost foreign travels; P180.000,000.00 in commissions from his/her pork barrel / CDF allocations; for an average of two committee chairmanships, the senator gets twice of what he gets as a senator (excluding the salaries) amounting to P207,360.000.

In six years, the senator earns – solely for himself – P393,560,000.00 Or almost Php 0.5 Billion. Or P82,260,000.00 per year.

But Miriam forgot one very important thing, the one thing that could truly hurt the senators. The figures above are nothing, barya lang , compared to the real source of dirty wealth and riches for one greedy senator. Some senators find giving up the trickles mentioned above like a walk in the park. Did Miriam forget, or did she intentionally omit the true source of a greedy senator's billions?

She forgot the lobby money. And we will dwell on that in our next column.