TAGBILARAN CITY?OVER 85,000 CANDIdates seek election to 17,000 posts, come May 10. Before 50.2 million voters, most brag of ?spotless records.?
Even Joseph Ejercito Estrada? Yes, even Erap. Convicted for plunder, Estrada insists he, too, is clean as a whistle.
So do the Ampatuans of massacre-stained Maguindanao. And don?t forget former Agriculture Undersecretary Jocelyn Bolante. ?Joc-joc? splurged P782 million in a fertilizer scam for President Macapagal-Arroyo?and got away with it.
?A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.? Candidates resort to selective amnesia in self-defense. Only a few blush. Indeed, ?one is astonished very few politicians are hanged,? G.K. Chesterton marveled.
But how does the situation look from the voters? ranks? Filipinos have short memories, our critics say. We rarely resolve issues, starting with Japanese collaborators in World War II. When not sashaying at noontime soaps, many prefer to barge into the next scandal. As a result, every election confronts us with new scams even before amnesia completely blacks out previous unresolved anomalies.
Is closure really alien to us? Failure or refusal to confront abuse frontally spawns impunity. This culture embeds corruption.
Commission on Elections Chair Jose Melo, just this week, spiked an order for 1.8 million ballot-secrecy folders. OTC Paper Supply billed the Comelec P380 each per folder. ?Extravagant,? Melo snapped. Thus, Resolution No. 8814 scrubbed the order.
Who hit the replay button? Senate Report 44 earlier skewered the Comelec under Benjamin Abalos for rigging purchase of P2.3-billion Mega-Pacific computers. ?Credible, orderly and peaceful elections (were) put in jeopardy by the illegal and gravely abusive acts of Comelec,? the Supreme Court found.
Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez thumbed her nose at both the Senate and Supreme Court. She ignored the Court order to get back the money. No one was liable, she ruled.
?Where in the world does a major crime occur without a criminal?? asked Viewpoint. (Inquirer 7/29/08) Onli in da Pilipins.
A predictable pattern of graft has emerged over the years. Institutions co-opted by insiders provide thieves with flak jackets. Crooks commit serial pillage. This pattern surfaces in jueteng, Radstock, Naia Terminal III, even the Statement of Assets and Liabilities of Rep. Mikey Arroyo.
Remember the Diosdado Macapagal Boulevard brouhaha? Public Estates Authority?s Sulpicio Tagud Jr. asserted that the cost of the GSIS-funded, 5.1-kilometer avenue was padded P600 million. Approved during the Estrada administration, the deal went through. No one got sanctioned.
Who hit the replay button? After a two-year probe, the World Bank found seven companies guilty of rigging bids ?at artificial, noncompetitive levels? in a $33 million road improvement project here. It blackballed three Filipino firms: E.C. de Luna Construction Corp., Cavite Ideal International Co. Ltd. and CM Pancho Construction Inc.
In two days, Representatives Roger Mercado of Southern Leyte, Milagros Magsaysay of Zambales and Elpidio Barzaga of Cavite and other House public works committee members whitewashed the blacklisted firms. ?No evidence of collusion,? insisted the lavandera brigade. The three blackballed firms were ?the most reliable contractors in the country,? Public Works Undersecretary Manuel Bonoan murmured.
?The result is a House ?white list,?? noted ?Judas chromosomes? (Viewpoint, 2/3/09). ?It stands in stark contrast to the World Bank?s black list. The bank found sleaze. That is integrity, congressmen insist. The bank took swift corrective action. The solons want more of the same.?
The bank?s official report has gathered dust on desk of the ombudsman and the public works secretary. The First Gentleman, who was cited in the controversy, hasn?t complained.
Look beyond surface eruptions, suggests Philippine Human Development Report 2009. The deeper patterns are more telling.
PHDR analyzed audit findings for 45 government agencies between 1992 to 2007. Over the last 15 years, all audit reports covering the Department of Public Works were ?adverse.? Not a single audit for the Bureau of Internal Revenue got a passing mark. Those for the Agriculture Department were also uniformly adverse.
Few today remember the Chingkoe tax credit scam. Ombudsman Aniano Desierto in 2002 crafted charges that were booby-trapped to fail. The charges were ?destined for dismissal by design,? fumed then Misamis Oriental Rep. Oscar Moreno.
Fast forward to 2007. The regime?s charges lodged against Secretary Romulo Neri and Chairman Benjamin Abalos, in the $329.5 million contact for a national broadband network with ZTE were ?curiously weak,? the Inquirer noted.
Fast forward to 2010: The rebellion charges against the Ampatuans of Maguindanao were wobbly, the Inquirer noted. And one didn?t need a crystal bowl to predict last week?s dismissal by the regional trial court. Taking a dive is SOP for this regime.
With her election, citizens gifted President Arroyo with a ?rare second chance to repair the damage she inflicted on vital democratic institutions,? Viewpoint noted in June 14, 2005. ?That window of opportunity for reparation will not come again.?
The window, in fact, has slammed shut. Even a Supreme Court?s willingness to pry windows open for the Godmother won?t recover squandered opportunity. ?You did not recognize the time of your visitation,? the Teacher from Galilee said. So in you, ?not a stone will be left upon stone.?
(Email: juanlmercado@gmail.com)
