DRILON WELCOMES BIR MOVE TO CHARGE NERI, CUNANAN

Senator Franklin Drilon on Thursday welcomed the move of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) to file tax evasion charges against former SSS president Romulo Neri and SSS chairman Thelmo Cunanan for their failure to declare their appropriate incomes.

"As we have said before and beyond the abuses that we have seen in public enterprises, there should be criminal liabilities on the part of the SSS officials who exercised their stock option by sitting in the boards of private companies," said Drilon, who happens to be the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee that unearthed grave abuses on excessive compensation the members of the governing boards of state firms receive.

"Even if they argued that they used their own money in exercising their stock option, the money that they received from it should have pertained to the pension fund that they represent," the senator added.

"These are trust funds that do not belong to themselves and to the government, but to the workers. It is the fiduciary obligation of the commissioners of SSS to protect the trust fund and not appropriate for themselves huge amounts of money in the form of obscene allowances," Drilon stated.

The senator has filed Senate Bill 2566 or the proposed GOCC Governance Act of 2010 as a result of the investigation on unwarranted benefits of state firms. An initial hearing on the proposal has been scheduled on November 8.