THAT IS A LOT OF MONEY, SENATOR TRILLANES

How can a detained senator actually spend P500,000 in travel expenses in a span of six months? This is something that we should judiciously wonder about since taxpayers’ money was certainly used to finance this so-called “travels” of the neophyte lawmaker. I have nothing against Senator Trillanes since he was voted into office by the people and from what I’ve read and heard was still able to author 155 bills despite his incarceration at Camp Crame. However, one can’t help but be surprised by the difference of his travel costs and that of an old-timer senator like Joker Arroyo whom we all know is as hard-working in terms of making laws and who has been very humble about his past accomplishments unlike some of his colleagues.
The January 17 Philippine Star report regarding Trillanes’ expenses as officially cited by the Commission on Audit comes as a surprise since the detained lawmaker has been very tenacious in his anti-corruption crusade particularly against the Arroyo administration. As such, five hundred thousand pesos was really a lot of money wasted on local travels by someone who was not even allowed to travel or even step outside his cell at the Custodial Center of Camp Crame in Quezon City. Would it then be too much to assume that part of the solon’s allotted money were used as remuneration for some of his “comrade-in-arms” during 2003 Oakwoad mutiny who were unfortunate not to be elected as a senator and receive monthly salary of forty-three thousand pesos(P43,000.00) a month? This could happen and is not entirely implausible.
Ironically, I was one of the people who voted for Trillanes in 2007 and even applauded his golden promise prior his sweet victory which is to waive his pork barrel. But like any other sad story, it was the promise that was waived and not the pork barrel. Being a campaigner against corruption, we all expected Trillanes to be the most frugal among the other senators, but by the looks of the COA report we can now safely assume that the solon has long forgotten the value we Filipinos place on “palabra de honor”. The filed 155 bills will not erase the fact that P500,000 of taxpayers’ money was wasted on travels while another more or less P300,000 was needlessly wasted to finance meetings and conferences and extraordinary and miscellaneous expenses of Senator Trillanes and his throng of staff members. And, what is sad about the story is the fact that this happened in a span of only six months. I shudder to think what the expenses of the detained lawmaker would be in another six months.