It’s really quite amazing how people in government — particularly the kind that we have in the country, in general, and Tarlac, in particular — scram when they get caught with their hands in the cookie jar. They raise all sorts of arguments and justifications. They find courage to defend themselves, their acts and their superiors in spite of widespread perceptions that such are unfit conducts and behaviors for individuals whose salaries and perks are being paid for by taxpayers already overburdened by poverty and destitution.

But in other countries, like the US or most of our Asian neighbors, people in government who are found to be enmeshed in controversies instead find the courage to step down from their posts and face the music, so to speak. In other words, there is delicadeza.

Take the case of that opprobrious trip to Subic last June 8, a Saturday, by some 500 employees of the Tarlac City government. Imagine the abhorrence of it with Mayor Genaro Mendoza conveniently allowing P250,000 in people’s money to be spent for such an affair, held at the costly Ocean’s View resort.

This, amid the fact that, in Tarlac City, the number of impoverished urban poor families is growing, joblessness and underemployment are becoming prevalent, street children and beggars are becoming a common sight at the city proper, and a host of other socio-economic problems that need to be addressed.

Yet, the mayor had the temerity to insist that, since the fund is under his office’s jurisdiction, he has the right to have it released.

Que horror!

And now comes Vicente Manalang, president of the Tarlac City Government Employees’ Union (TCGEU), that very same group that spearheaded the taxpayer-funded affair.

The funny thing here is that Mr. Manalang — who, together with his colleagues, apparently needs to be reminded that he is also a public servant, as it is the people who pay for his salaries and privileges — contradicted Mayor Mendoza’s earlier statement that the Subic trip was a "seminar-outing."

In the first place, Mr. Manalang said in a two-page open letter, the TCGEU has not sought for a "seminar," as he proudly stated that the affair was a "team-building workshop" that was in the form of an "office outing or excursion."

Mind you, it was P250,000 in people’s money — again, people’s money — that was spent for this "office outing or excursion."

But the government union head went overboard further in justifying the spending of the people’s money for the "office outing or excursion," when he surprisingly said that Mayor Mendoza "had not touched even a single centavo" from the government fund.

Well, nobody said that the mayor touched the money. In the first place, that’s not the issue here. For purposes of putting this crux in order, the issue being raised is the propriety of using the people’s money for an "office outing or excursion."

Besides, there are government rules that clearly state that public funds cannot be used for private purposes, including activities of government unions and organizations, aside from the fact that there are also rules regarding allowing the release of funds from the mayor’s office.

Nobody would give a damn even if Mr. Manalang and the TCGEU would be able to liquidate the P250,000-people’s money drawn in the form of a cash advance from Mayor Mendoza’s allocation for aid and grant. The point is, public funds that came from our suffering taxpayers were used in an "office outing or excursion"!

Just imagine, how many starving residents of Tarlac City would have had been fed by the said amount? How many street children could have had been sent to school? How many simple but decent homes could have had been built for urban poor families?

Now, is this the "good governance" that Mayor Mendoza has been bragging about? That of expediently releasing P250,000 in people’s money for an "office outing or excursion" to an expensive beach resort such as Ocean’s View? Is this "Magsikap Tarlac"? Is this "Lungsod Muna Bago Sarili"?

Que horror, indeed!