Corruption, failed economy by sheer incompetence and toxic politics in the upper echelons of power are the main ingredients that had prompted the citizens of Indonesia, Nepal and France to come together in a massive protest and indignation against the current government leadership.
What brought them to the streets are too familiar. The only difference is that what is unveiling in the Philippines today is far greater than what the three countries had and are still going through. In addition we are a nation which is slow to anger and can hold pent-up emotion in the hope that change would come. But then the danger here is that when it can no longer be briddled, the outcome could be as vengeful as that of the angry Nepalese people. Already the simmering social temper has started to boil and it is heated faster by the dubious politicking of some political characters in the midst of Senate and House investigations on the ghost and substandard flood control projects.
I need not go through the numbers of failed projects and the tens of billions of pesos that were purloined by contractors, DPWH personnel and congressmen. They are all posted, pasted, published on online media and we all watched in TV and in living colors the public confessions of principal characters involved in the daytime robbery of the taxpayers money in regular and unprogrammed funds that was budgeted and inserted for DPWH. The Blue Ribbon Committee under Sen. Rodante Marcoleta had virtually unearthed every skeletons in the closets of the members of the corruption syndicates including the gambling vices of DPWH officials and the penchant of the Discaya couple for luxury.
But suddenly a radical change happened. The Senate leadership happened like there was a hand with a magic wand that surreptitiously orchestrated it. Tito Sotto of the comedic “Tito, Vic and Joey” fame unseated Sen. Chiz Escudero. Chiz had it coming. Not only did he want to erase that image of being the waitperson of the First Lady, Chiz wanted to be independent, a matter which obviously did not please the tenant in Malacanang and the cousin in the House of Representatives.
Except for the earth-shaking revelations in the speech of Sen. Ping Lacson the temper and the tempo in the senate investigation slowed down. Lacson who is now the Chairman of the Blue Ribbon Committee seems to be waiting for some instructions even as Sotto himself had asserted his authority on who, where and what to do with the persons they summoned.
In the House of Romualdez however the Infrastructure Committee suddenly came alive and started to summon people which had been summoned by Marcoleta. The strategy and the agenda took a different turn: to implead former President Rodrigo Duterte in the corruption and scandalous apportionment of multi-million-peso contracts for flood control projects.
Partylist Representatives Luistro, Diokno and the ever-salivating Leila de Lima all aimed to establish that corruption in flood control projects started with the term of Duterte. Under oath plus documentary evidence cannot, however, be altered for the contractors involved in the scandal started even as far back during the term of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
For her part, de Lima stoically insist that the ghost and substandard flood mitigating projects started with Duterte and added that it was part of the corruption issues behind the purchases of personal protection equipment and vaccines from China through the representation of Pharmally. She skipped the fact that when then Senator Dick Gordon investigated what they suspected were overpriced PPEs it turned out that the Duterte government purchased the PPEs at half the price the Noynoy Aquino government paid the same item in preparation for the threats of Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) that hit the Middle Eastern countries. De Lima also conveniently forgot that the Department of Health at the onset of COVID – 19 the government was able to acquire millions of Sinovac vaccines at the time when the US and EU imposed an embargo on the vaccines they produced.
De Lima and her associates had their chagrin when they were told by the DPWH contractors that indeed they had contracts during the Duterte regime and that their net incomes were bigger then as there were no demands for shares or commissions.
Of course, they revived the issue about the ₱51- billion 3-year allocation for the 1st District of Davao City where Paolo Duterte is congressman. Congressman Polong, who is not into boasting his performance, challenged his colleagues to go ahead conduct an investigation in the city and point out where the substandard and ghost projects are. Buried in the exchanges is the data that the 1st District of Davao City is bigger than Metro Manila. In effect, the ₱51-billion for the period of three years is pittance.
Amidst the posturings and empty soundbites that characterize the lowest house Infrastructure Committee is a voice of courage…Cavite Congressman Francisco Barzaga stood and delivered the bravest message in the House of Representstives: “Well I believe that If anyone should be investigated the first person should be investigated is House Speaker Martin Romualdez. Because he’s the House speaker,” he added.
Barzaga’s remark represents the sentiments, anger and disappointments of the youth sectors whose future is at risk because of the unprecedented corruption that crippled the government bureaucracy.
