Charge senators for ‘brazen misuse of public funds’

Senator Panfilo Lacson deserves credit for proposing that graft charges be filed against senators found to have misused Senate funds, including the millions of pesos in maintenance and other operating expenses or MOOE for their respective offices and staff (“Lacson wants senators charged for fund misuse,” Inquirer, 1/19/13).

I am in full agreement with Lacson on this issue after he disclosed recently that one particular senator, whom he did not name, had put even her  kasambahay  or household help in the Senate payroll, and that her grocery expenses had also been charged to the Senate.

This is a gross and brazen misuse of public funds that should not be tolerated by the Aquino administration if it is really serious in pursuing the “daang matuwid.”

The Commission on Audit should waste no time and heed Lacson’s call as this would determine who among the senators are true to their calling as public servants and who among them are hypocrites who talk out of the two sides of their mouths and masquerade as clean and honest when in fact they are not.

—JONALYN MARQUEZ,

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