by Mindy Aguon
Guam - A former Guam resident has taken the national spotlight after a music video he created as part of an office competition went viral and is the subject of an Inspector General investigation. Hank Terlaje is a General Services Agency employee in Hawaii who strums a ukelele while singing and rapping about spending by the agency. In the video Terlaje jokes about excess spending and never being investigated.
"I buy everything your field office can't afford," Terlaje jokes in the video. The GSA worker refers to an awards program that gave out hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer funded iPods, gift cards and electronics to its employees. while Terlaje brags that he'll never be under OIG investigation, that very agency just came out with a report detailing overspending at the GSA that included $822,000 on a lavish 2010 Western Regions training conference held in Las Vegas. $75,000 was spent on team-building exercises, and $6,000 on canteens, keychains and T-shirts.
Footage from the conference when Terlaje was awarded for his music video shows that he merely sang the song, "I want to be a commissioner so freaking bad...", but Terlaje says someone else wrote the lyrics. The presenters of the award also state,"We need to do more recruiting from Guam."
Coincidentally, Terlaje's video was featured at the conference where reportedly $200,000 worth of prizes were handed out to employees. His video was the winner of the employee video contest. As a result of the report GSA Administrator Martha Johnson resigned this past week and Congress has vowed to conduct further scrutiny into the agency's spending.
Terlaje is a graduate of Father Duenas Memorial School and currently lives in Hawaii.