Aquino legacy in peril

Marites Dañguilan Vitug

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The President faces the worst corruption scandal in his administration. He can either get out of it a hero or sink with it.

Marites Dañguilan Vitug

Halfway into his term, President Aquino faces the worst corruption scandal in his administration, a “land mine” left by his predecessor, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, but the roots of which lie deep in Philippine political culture. 

The Aquino administration has also been rocked by the biggest indignation rally which, while it was against the pork barrel, called on the President to fix the mess. 

The wholesale theft of multi-billion pesos in taxpayers’ money by Janet Napoles, her partners—legislators and officials in the various government agencies—and other Napoles-like syndicates shows that fighting corruption goes beyond fierce rhetoric, shaming and naming the thick-faced rascals, and leading by example. It requires structural reforms that will make the working environment hostile to graft and grease.

READ: Madame Jenny: Woman in the eye of a storm

Ironically, this pork barrel crisis presents a big opportunity for the President to change the country’s political landscape and leave a lasting mark as a true reformist. “PNoy’s own credibility in trekking a straight path is at stake,” an academic and political analyst told me.

Justice and transparency

But 4 things should happen under his watch.   

First, the guilty, no matter how high and mighty, should be jailed. The government should go after their assets and retrieve as much of what has been stolen. As many like to invoke, “Let justice be done though the heavens fall!”

Second, wean the legislators away from pork—fat, meat, skin and all. 

Even with the Supreme Court’s order to temporarily stop the use of the 2013 Priority Development Assistance Fund or PDAF, Aquino can call on his allies in Congress to delete whatever remains of the P24.7-billion lump-sump PDAF, channel it to select agencies, and take away the legislators’ discretion to identify projects. Several congressmen have already agreed to do this and, more importantly, public support is at a high for this move. The same has already been done for the 2014 PDAF worth P25.2 billion, as Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr has announced. 

The 2015 national budget is expected to no longer reflect any pork-barrel fund. The next president, most likely, will find it hard to return the PDAF in whatever form.

Third, shine the light on all government agencies by making the FOI bill a priority. We’re not seeing the President’s resolve here, the kind he showed when he pushed for the controversial RH bill and the unprecedented impeachment of a chief justice.

Darkness has allowed the vampires to suck our blood.

For instance, little-heard of GOCCs like the National Agribusiness Corp, ZNAC Rubber Estate Corp (both under the agriculture department), and the Technology Resource Center, under the science and technology department, were easy processors of pork-barrel money. They went to bed with fake NGOs.

Fourth, lump-sum amounts in the national budget, which allow lots of discretion, should be done away with. These are red flags, open invitations to corruption. 

Fortunately, this has already started, along with putting order in unwieldy bureaucracies. For example, the Department of Agriculture (DA), where pork-barrel syndicates thrived, has a treasure trove of lump-sum funds. Insiders in the budget department tell me that these cover regular programs for rice, corn, irrigation and farm-to-market roads, and are managed in a highly centralized way, with the Office of the Secretary. 

Apparently, the DA has the most number of programs. “For every major crop—rice, corn, abaca, coconut, seaweed, rubber, etc.—and support service like credit, postharvest, and training, you have a program and most likely an agency overseeing it, to which funds can be channelled and they have been operating with a minimum of transparency,” a DBM official explained. “Because of this, quite a number of vested interests operate in DA and its agencies, mostly traders and suppliers for farm inputs like seeds, fertilizers, and farm implements.”  

The DBM has been dispersing the implementation of these programs and, consequently, the use of these funds. The public works and highways department is now in charge of DA infrastructure. By next year, the rationalization process will be completed.  

Accidents of history

I would like to address this last point to President Aquino.

Mr. President, you became our leader by a tragic twist of fate. The death of your mother, democracy icon Cory Aquino, thrust you into the highest office in the land. In a way, this makes you an accidental president. You’ve always said that you never sought this position; you were called to do your share in building our nation and you rose to the occasion.

Today, you find yourself face to face with another accident. Greed and infighting in a criminal syndicate has led to a whistleblower’s shocking revelations of corruption in very high places. But you are in a position to make this accident a game-changer.

You always say that you are shaking other people’s rice bowls in your anti-corruption campaign. It’s time to shake the legislators’ rice bowls. By this single act, you will remove that P word (patronage) in Congress and pave the way for politicians who have the public interest, more than anything else, in mind. 

Mr. President, don’t let the shine come off your “daang matuwid.” Don’t let this be the dead end. – Rappler.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

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Marites Dañguilan Vitug

Marites is one of the Philippines’ most accomplished journalists and authors. For close to a decade, Vitug – a Nieman fellow – edited 'Newsbreak' magazine, a trailblazer in Philippine investigative journalism. Her recent book, 'Rock Solid: How the Philippines Won Its Maritime Case Against China,' has become a bestseller.