Malacañang to public: Scrutinize GOCCs too

MANILA, Philippines—Malacañang on Tuesday urged the public to “scrutinize” government-owned and -controlled corporations (GOCCs) amid growing outrage over the fat bonuses company executives had awarded to themselves.

“We have no problem with the scrutiny of the performances of these GOCCs,” deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte told reporters.

“We invite the public really to help us in scrutinizing their performance to see if they really deserve the incentives they have applied for.”

Valte claimed the bonuses given to commissioners and staffers at the Social Security System (SSS) and 19 other GOCCs went through “very stringent metrics” and did “not depend on the performance of a particular individual.”

“We’ll leave it to the individual GOCCs to justify their performance to the public in reference to the bonuses that they applied for,” she said.

Valte declined to touch on the “morality” of giving fat bonuses to SSS executives, even if members’ contributions were set to be increased by 0.6 percent.

“I’ve heard arguments raised to that effect—as to the morality of their bonuses, as to the timing of the bonuses—I will leave it at that,” she said.

She noted “reforms” that focused on an individual GOCC’s “performance.”

“These bonuses cannot be given just by virtue of the fact that you are appointed to a seat in a particular GOCC,” she said, “but there has to be the corollary performance that comes with it.”