Photo courtesy: PCO
The unprecedented scandal of graft and corruption involving ghost and substandard flood control projects is full-blown. From a country gearing for war that has nothing to do with, the image of the Philippines is now plastered all over as the most corrupt in the world. Corruption is now systemic in the government bureaucracy. It’s a national shame!
To excise the Department of Public Works and Highways is not enough. The officials of DPWH from top to bottom must be brought to court. These include those who had principal roles and those who were silent while the grand thieveries were taking place under their nose. President Marcos should start with DPWH Sec. Manuel Bonoan. In short, DPWH has to be totally collapsed and its functions be subsumed by other Departments like the Department of Transportation or the Department of Interior and Local Government. Leave no vestige of the rotten DPWH to exist beyond its existence.
Having done that, Marcos should dispatch BIR examiners to look into the books and Income Tax Returns of the DPWH contractors involved in the broad daylight heists of tens of billions taxpayers money. Blacklisting the firms involved in the caper as suggested by Secretary Bonoan is merely a gentle rap on the wrists of the insatiable congressmen-cum-contractors and private contractors. Let the crooks reside in the maximum prison cells. Their acts are nothing less than grand larceny that push this nation on the edge of a failed state…assuming we are not there yet.
But Marcos could have his redemption if he has the guts to run after the grafters. His term is about to end. His administration could either end up as the most rotten and corrupt, or by dealing with the characters that stole the budget of his much ballyhooed 5,500 flood control projects, come out as a Marcos that weeded out the larceny that crippled and tarnished the image of the Philippines.
If he is adamant as what we presently see in his attitude towards Bonoan then we have to live with the putrid murk of the unconscionable flood of corruption of this dispensation until the end of his term in 2028. How he will be judged on or before the end of his term is solely dependent on him.
