WHEN the new helmsmen of local government units come marching in by July, many of them will be gnashing their teeth and whining like cuckolded creatures as they check the money books to find it (in most instances , that is) empty or nearing so. They would effectively be reduced to being conquerors without funds, in short.

And so the first order of business for most of these new officials would be the shoring up of whatever little finance from the public coffers is left. You wouldn’t be expecting any big program or project coming up too soon from them because of this very real constraint. A little more probing here and there and they’ll probably find many payables and unpaid loans to boot, compounding the general headache.

This is what the mill of government bureaucracy in the Philippines has been reduced to. The outgoing administration, by and large, would have no compunction about going on a spending binge on the final days of its rule in a bizarre move to deny the winner, their tormentor, the “spoils” of office or the funds that they have “painstakingly” built up and cared for. This “scorched earth” policy, reminiscent of the war years in Europe where retreating forces built and destroyed everything in their path to deny the approaching conquering armies whatever measures of comfort has been ingrained in many a local government officer’s psyche that leaving their successor enough wherewithals for his first day on the job is now considered “a stupid act.’

Those among the new officials who do find their coffers still with a modest start-up “capital” for their first projects can count themselves lucky, rare as their magnanimous losing public officials are these days.

We suggest the Department of Interior and Local Government take it upon itself to order the publication of the state of finances of an LGU at the time of assumption of the new provincial, town or city officials as a matter of public information. It is after all, enshrined in the Constitution that such are matters of public concern and well within the public’s right to know.