FASTLANES: Give the system a chance vs corruption

CAGAYAN DE ORO (MindaNews / 14 September) — If you look at Philippine governance in at least the last two decades, we find the lows and highs.

The laws of the GMA administration were the Hello Garci, fertilizer scam, and the yet-to-be exposed PDAF-Napoles scam.

The PDAF-Napoles scam spread into the Aquino administration, until it was exposed at the start of Aquino’s 2^nd half, in July 2013.

Accountability: The functions of crimes and punishment are something our country has to learn, here is why?

There were small potatoes who got jailed or administratively penalized in the fertilizer scam. Belatedly, smaller potatoes like then congressman of Cagayan de Oro and former mayor Tinnex Jaraula was found by the Sandiganbayan guilty in November 2024, and meted imprisonment of six to 10 years  for the scam.

But in Hello Garci, GMA got scot-free; in the Napoles scam, Napoles remains in jail, but congressmen and high government officials got scot-free.

When the Napoles scam got exposed in 2013, President Noynoy Aquino turned hard on the perpetrators. Two senators Jinggoy Estrada and Bong Revilla and a Senate President – Juan Ponce Enrile were imprisoned after evidence found out by the Blue-Ribbon Committee then headed by Senator Teofisto Guingona III reached the court. Some got scot-free like TESDAman Joel Villanueva. Janet Napoles remains in jail. Enrile’s assistant Gigi Reyes was released in 2023 after nine years of incarceration.

PNoy Reforms

One of the highswas President Aguino’s instituted mechanisms to address corruption. One was the Citizens Participatory Audit (CPA). According to the COA website: CPA is a strategy to uphold the people’s right to a transparent government and use of public resources built on the premise that public accountability prospers with a vigilant and involved citizenry. There were other programs like bottom-up budgeting.

The Ombudsman and the Sandigangbayan were seen as functioning.

For the hot-topic flood control, PNoy has around P200 billion flood control projects. More importantly, he crafted a flood control master plan towards the end of his terms. This was turned over to the Duterte administration.

Duterte Reversal

These and other worthy mechanisms to strengthen good governance like the CPA and Bottom-up Budgeting were discontinued by the Duterte Administration.

As for flood control, Duterte’s administration created 12,000 flood control projects. But largely ignored the government’s flood masterplan crafted in the PNoy administration. While people were made to believe that some infrastructure

projects needed to be deferred during the Covid pandemic, a significant number of flood control projects were approved during the pandemic.

Just like the Napoles scam, the flood control scam spilled over to the next administration. In 2022-25, a trillion worth of flood control projects were funded by Congress.

BBM Reforms

While PNoy was dubbed Boy-sisi for blaming almost all the ails of government to his predecessor, President BBM was not, and is not. Fresh from the unity-team (BBM-Sara) victory in 2022, it was party-time version 2 of those who profited much from the corruption of the previous administration.

But at least, in the PBBM period, there are already checks, perverse as they seem, in bagging DPWH projects. In Curly Discaya’s own testimony, “kung hindi kami magbigay, ma road-right-of-way projects namin.” This could also mean, during Duterte’s time, they get what they wanted.

And this explains the exponential growth of the revenues of the Discaya-owned construction firms, like St. Timothy, St. Gerrard and Alpha and Omega in 2017: P1.034B (972% growth from 2016); P12.05B in 2018; P13.55B in 2019; P16.07B in 2021; and P20.52 in 2022. Despite the demands for kickbacks in the present administration, the Discayas still got P18.62B worth of projects in 2023.

Righteous Rage

The rage against corruption is a righteous rage. But in times like this, even the devil quotes the bible, projects an image of righteousness and paints paradise as a gift of those who tread the right path.

But beware.

The mere fact that these scams were exposed means our system of accountability and transparency are at work, at least.

PNoy’s (Pres. Aquino’s) 2013 SONA: “Saan kayo kumukuha ng kapal sa mukha?” And we know what followed. 

BMM 2025 SONA: “Mahiya naman kayo sa inyong kapwa Pilipino.”

Had the people chosen to continue PNoy’s kind of governance, we could have seen continuity of reforms.

Instead, the Duterte administration was not just about blaming the previous administration, it demonized and destroyed the PNoy administration at every turn, without letting up in the next six years.

If the people are serious about fighting corruption in government, it should start with the electorate. But the electorate is now so corrupted, people seem to have grown the worst kind of entitlement: Demanding money from candidates before the vote. Elections are already a sellers’ market.

Unless one enjoys the thrill and adrenaline of drastic changes, of throwing the baby with the bath, going to ride the slippery slope of destroying democratic systems or worse, bringing back to power those who have yet to face the long arms of the law and the cold demeanor of justice.

It was PBBM who made the call to bring those in the flood control scam to account. People should support it.

It was a brave declaration to start with considering that the flood control corruption continues to perpetuate in the first half of his administration.

PNoy’s was not all highs, it had its shares of lows. But the six years that followed destroyed institutions. Our country lost its moral compass.

Same with the PBBM administration. There are some highs like when he allowed the International Criminal Court (ICC) to try Duterrte in The Hague and addressed inflation especially in food. 

The flood control mess that continued  in his first three years is still a low, but could be reversed by the outcome of the independent probe the President is pushing. 

That is the beauty of the systems of accountability, and checks and balances: Scams and irregularities can get rectified and more importantly, justice is served. 

The youth should be smarter than our generation. The road to redemption goes beyond 2028.

(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews.  Ben Cyrus G. Ellorin is former newspaper editor. He is now president of the Pinoy Aksyon for Governance and the Environment, Inc, a non-profit volunteer organization. Comments can be sent to bency.ellorin@gmail.com)