Legislating a legacy?

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor GUILLERMO TEJIDA III Desk Editor PATRICK PANGILINAN Busines Editor NIDA A. BUENAFE Sports Editor RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

Aurora Rep. Juan Edgardo Angara is asking governors and city and town mayors to adopt the full disclosure policy, one of the local governance reforms initiated by the late Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo that asks them to disclose the state of their finances to their constituents.

He has filed a bill that would require governors, mayors and even barangay captains to post and publish within their territorial jurisdictions a summary of all income and revenue from both public and private sources as well as a listing of all disbursements, expenditures and utilization of funds for the entire year. Under the bill, the summaries of incomes and expenditures would be posted in the provincial capital, city and town hall and barangay hall, and in conspicuous places for at least two consecutive weeks at the end of each year. Governors, mayors and barangay captains would also be required to publish such summaries within 60 days from the end of each year in a national newspaper for at least two consecutive weeks. The reports would be prepared and signed by the local treasure, to be attested to by the governor, city or municipal mayor, and barangay chairman, and by a representative of the Commission on Audit.

Angara says: “This is our way of acknowledging the legacy of a great man, by continuing the worthy program that he had started.” He dedicates the measure in honor of Robredo's great deeds and principled brand of leadership.

Lionizing and publicly praising the life and values of Jesse Robredo has become a popular pastime for politicos and officials wanting to score brownie points with the public. Many words have been spoken and tarpaulin posters hung in his honor but given our intimate knowledge of the way things work, most of us are realistic enough to accept that once Robredo is forgotten, the resistance to the change that he was trying to foment in government will be as strong as it was when he was alive. The brand of transparency and accountability that he established in Naga and was trying to introduce to the DILG remains the exception rather than the rule; dependent on the integrity and the political will of whoever is in charge.

This proposed bill gives us a chance to see if all the praises and kind words that have been heaped upon Jesse Robredo by politicians were truly sincere. It gathers enough support to become a law, then his life and untimely death would have made a palpable difference. If it does not, then at the very least, his legacy would have provided a blueprint for those politicians and public servants who would like to be the exception rather than the rule.*