The unprecedented corruption rooted from the scandalous ghost and substandard flood control project under the Marcos administration elicited a plethora of expose’ that involved the Office of the President, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee.
The triumverate created a tapestry of how to ransack the government treasury in various creative mode of pilferage among them are:
- appropriating billions of pesos intended for various projects of several departments and agencies under them;
- leaving 47 blank pages of appropriation items in the more than 4,000 pages of the proposed General Appropriation Budget;
- inserting additional billions of pesos for various budgetary items in the level of the bicameral committee; and the
- filling up of the blank pages with billions of pesos taken from budget allocations of agencies like the Department of Education and billions of pesos of inserted amount to what turned out to be the Department of Public Works and Highways as the instrument of fraud.
That was the evolution of the General Appropriation Act which was later signed by Pres. Ferdinand Marcos who claimed that he personally poured into every item contained in in the GAB. Until now it is not clear as to who filled up the blanks. Since nobody wants to own to the crime, it can only be surmised that that it was done by the infamous and powerful “small committee” composed of Rep. Zaldy Co (Ako Bicol Party-list), then-Chairperson of the House Committee on Appropriations, Rep. Stella Quimbo (Marikina City 2nd District), House Committee on Appropriations Senior Vice Chairperson, Rep. Mannix Dalipe (Zamboanga City 2nd District), House Majority Leader and Rep. Marcelino Libanan (4Ps Party-list), House Minority Leader.
All of them take guidance from then Speaker Romualdez, Appropriation Chairman Co who, according to Vice Pres. Sara Duterte are the only characters who decide on the government’s budget.
To undertake the pillage of the government treasury was the most corrupt Department in government- DPWH – where, by sheer defiance of the constitution and motivated by greed of the principal architects of the grand larceny, the more than a trillion pesos of the purloined amount was allocated. The District Engineers were happy participants in the assignments of projects to contractors who were equally ecstatic over the prospects of profits – after – kickacks. Why not? The projects, they agreed, are ghosts and paid in advance. In the local parlance it is called “kaliwaan”.
The heavens have lost patience against those who insatiably love Mamon He rained the places where projects where “constructed” with continuous rain until floods came and enundated the area to reveal the ghosts. Marcos knew by then that the anomally of his 5,500 flood control projects will be revealed in time. And he knows only too well where are these located. He then exclaimed, “Mahiya naman kayo” and then “What is happening to our government” obviously forgetting that he is the President.
Then came the revelation why, when and who profited from the biggest heist of the peoples’ taxes in the government coffers. The detailed confessions of the marginalized Zaldy Co, who later discovered he was being made the sacrificial goat of the grand corruption, defused the bombed on living TV. His expose’ included not only how the loot was divided and delivered to the house of Romualdez and a covert house beside Malacanang Palace. The delivery of billions of cash which was passed on as trash but contained in branded pieces of luggage.
The attempt to cover-up the ignominy that happened in current history is as organized as the plot to rob the treasury. Nearly every commercially available “analysts” in town and trolls of bloggers suddenly emerged singing the same tune, along with traditional print and broadcast media, not to denounce the grand corruption but to cover it up. Aside from what was purloined from the treasury are the ₱90-billions of trust funds from PhilHealth and ₱107-billions from PDIC, the billions of unknown proceeds from the surreptitious sale of 25 tons of gold bars and whatever they can squeeze from other government financial institutions and government controlled corporations.
To cover up and drown the issue the paid hacks came out in chorus to denounce Vice President Sara Duterte ₱125-million in Confidential and Intelligence Funds. Even a cleric, named Flavie Villanueva, a rehabilitated drug addict and A Ramon Magsaysay awardee, came forward with his handful of ‘civil society’ and file a plunder case against the Vice President.
His crusade has been branded immoral and gravely political for he and his group forgot the magma of corruptions in the scale of a trillion plus pesos that is pushing the country into the edge of perdition. Flavie just like the scores of Marcos and Romualdez apologists were blind, deaf and dumb over the mountain of and grand scale of taxpayers money that went to the pockets of “mga hayop” as described by Sec. Vince Dizon but saw a molehill in the VP’s CIF which had already passed audit.
In the course of this shameless events that elevated the image of our country as the most corrupt in current time, sadly the entire government bureaucracy, notably the Executive and Legislative Departments totally forgot the plight of the farmers. But be careful with the silence of the lambs.
