House of Reps: Just who are they representing?

B. Herry-Priyono, Jakarta

The House of Representatives, which is already so low in the eyes of the public, has sunk even lower. The crux this time revolves around gluttony for money. This may be disguised by terms like "welfare", "performance boost", "comparative studies", or even "respectability boost", as if the House members don't feel respectable enough. The fact remains, however, that gluttony is at the root of it all.

To see all House members as belonging to the same herd is, of course, misleading, but the latest brouhaha, which may have also been driven by demands for money from the political parties, involves a collective move that is sinister to say the least.

A chorus of support engulfed the House when the Ways and Means Committee proposed a mammoth increase in take-home pay for the 546 members and four House leaders. By July 15, all 10 factions in the House had signed up to the proposal (The Jakarta Post, July 16, 2005).

Under the proposal, each House member -- and there are 546 in total -- is to receive monthly take-home pay of approximately Rp 51.9 million (US$5,300), or an 82.8 percent rise from their current take-home pay. For the House speaker, the increase is even more spectacular at 104 percent, or up to Rp 82.1 million compared to Rp 40.1 million at present. Meanwhile, the deputy speakers are to receive an 89.5 percent pay rise (from Rp 35.7 to 67.7 million). If these sort of increases had been proposed for our atrociously paid public school teachers, the people would have been jubilant.

It comes as no surprise then that the move has drawn strong public criticism. Amid the criticism, some members continue to argue that the spectacular pay rises are not intended to benefit them personally. Rather, so they claim, the increases are intended to improve their performance in representing their constituents. While to immediately dismiss this claim as tosh could be construed as adopting a presumption of guilt, it would be equally misconceived not to consider the possibility of this being a mere pretext.

From the point of view of bargaining, the proposed pay increases may just be an example of the "demand-as-high-as- possible" tactic widely practiced in diplomacy. But even on this count, the proposal is an insult to the public. The good news is that the proposal will have to go through a series of close examinations, especially from the actuarial eyes of the Ministry of Finance.

But as the inside story unfolds, the clearer it becomes that the proposal involves a conspiracy. It is no wonder then that when the proposal came under sustained fire, some House members became furious to the point that they wanted to unseat House Speaker Agung Laksono on the grounds that he had not worked hard enough to win public support for the pay rise.

There is no need to rehash the societal context that clearly makes this proposal an insult. The fact that the country is now afflicted by numerous maladies that drain budgetary resources is sufficient grounds for any reasonable person to view the proposal as showing contempt for the public. This is not to say that public sentiment is always right.

However, it is precisely the fact that it ignores public sentiment that has given the House such a bad name for decades. Now, when an acid test is presented to House members to prove that they are not part of the old guard, they fail, and fail miserably. It is true that image is not everything. But politics is a volatile and uncertain business in which public image plays a major part.

Then, as if enough harm had not been done, the House rubs salt in the public's wounds in the form of a ruckus over overseas trips. Even a six-grader can see that a term like "comparative study" really means a junket. The House Ways and Means Committee has earmarked Rp 32.4 billion for overseas travel by House members in 2006. This is more than a 100 percent rise compared to Rp 14.06 billion in 2005. Some upright members of the House no doubt do travel overseas on serious comparative studies. But, do we really believe that most House members do so?

From 1995 to 2001, I had the privilege of living in London as a student on a scholarship. Due to my tight budget, sometimes I augmented my subsistence allowance by working as a tour guide. Once in a while the visitors would be House members on "comparative studies". To my surprise, many took little interest in touring the corridors of the House of Commons and House of Lords, let alone watching parliamentary proceedings. Usually, what they did was simply take a few pictures in front of Big Ben and Parliament in all its gothic splendor, and then ask me to take them to the nearest expensive shopping area.

Real comparative studies need long and thorough preparations, with proper probing of the issues that are to be compared. All this involves hard work.

By contrast, the "comparative studies" widely engaged in by most House members are often little more than sightseeing and shopping sprees. Of course, the costs are borne by the taxpayers. All this reminds me of a derogatory Javanese expression: kiri munggah bali (beggar in the palace). This is roughly akin to "nouveau riche", and refers to general uncouthness resulting from becoming rich or powerful too quickly.

We sincerely hope that it is not this that is currently affecting our national legislators. But if it is, the time has come for societal groups like Parliament Watch to organize a public petition that will hopefully garner millions of signatures to stop the House from prolonging this ongoing farce.

The writer is a postgraduate lecturer at the Driyarkara School of Philosophy, Jakarta, and an alumnus of the London School of Economics.