AFTER THE REVELATION of the Discayas’ billions of profits, theacquisition of more than 30 luxury cars and P7.1 tax evasion, given their business of providing supposed flood control projects and other infrastructure improvements for flood-prone Philippines, the Inquirer headlines “FARM-TO-MARKET ROADS ‘OVERPRICED’ BY UP TO 70%.”
More, another front-page news: DPWH INFRA PROJECTS FOR AFP ALSO FLAGGED.”
Everybody now knows that many other private infrastructure contractors with the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) have been in the same kind of corrupt profit-making for many years now. And, most likely too, during the incumbency of Mark Villar as DPWH secretary, this so-called SOP between the Congress’ “Honorable Gentlemen” and private infrastructure contractors have been the ‘routine procedure’ all along. This is most likely connected to the fact of questionable insertions by the senators and congressmen in finalizing the country’s yearly trillion-peso budgets, carried outduring the secretive congress bicameral assembly.
PEOPLE’S MONEY
One impact that disturbs the Filipino people about this “stealing of their money” in these DPWH projects is that a district engineer can afford to lose a billion in one night of casino gambling!
More disturbing given the corruption in DPWH projects is the lack of budgets for the improvement of the country’s Education and Healthcare systems.
Moreover, how will government provide the necessary cash to provide appropriate assistance in helping the jobless set up livelihoods for themselves, or extra cash assistance for the farmers and fishermen?
To address the corruption in the DPWH, President Bongbong Marcos created the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI).
RELEVANT QUESTIONS
BUT well-meaning public officials, and social media netizens have expressed doubts about the ICI’s credibility to truly unearth the anomalies in the operations of the DPWH, and call to account the guilty senators and congressmen involved in the corrupt practices that have plagued infrastructure projects for the government.
Relevant questions have been raised: “Many civil society organizations and people of goodwill want transparency in the ICI’s deliberations for a credible conduct of the ICI members in their investigation, but why the refusal?” “How did these corrupt practices happen when there were supposed to have been built-in in government projects the scrutinizing eyes of the Commission of Audit (COA)Representatives.”
“Most disastrous of all, how did the DPWH Secretary manage his people, especially those officials handling sensitive positions to ensure government projects are completed on time and without any hitch?” “Didn’t President Bongbong Marcos do his own job of making sure his “alter-president” handling the DPWH portfolio carried out his department honorably, without any tint of corruption?” “Shouldn’t as chief executive of the country, President Bongbong Marcos should have taken the most appropriate serious anti-corruption stance regarding the performances of his cabinet secretaries?” “He aimed to fix up a country with so many problems by running for president (despite having been convicted by the Court of Appeals in the 1980s for non-payment of realty taxes worth millions, butallowed to run for president by Comelec whose reputation remains questionable as claimed by IT experts), but why the costly delay in discovering the corruption in the DPWH?”
PEOPLE’S APPEAL
Countless problems of the country still remain – high unemployment; unfair wages of laborers, farmers and fishermen;no help for the Lumads and other IPs; countless homeless people; drug smugglings and marketing; red-tagging by the NTF-ELCAC, resulting in enforced disappearances, illegal detentions, and EJKs; more than 750 political prisoners still languishing in jail; China’s relentless attacks on the country’s sovereignty in the WPS; the missing P20/kg of rice; etc.
The people’s appeal, rather, demand: “Mr. President, limit or end this chaos! Stop corruption! Work intelligently, OK?”