October 2, 2024 | 12:00am
Over the past few weeks, we have enjoyed quite a show from a number of congressional investigations at the Senate and the House. In the past, such public hearings were more like bad entertainment. But our legislators are getting better so we learned a lot of things that would have otherwise remained officially hidden from us.
The most disconcerting confirmation we got from the hearings is that our national security has been terribly compromised because of rampant corruption at all levels of government. Spies from China, a potential adversary, have been able to penetrate our government and who knows how many of them are entrenched by pretending to be Filipinos, complete with seemingly authentic birth certificates sold to them by a local civil registrar.
A documentary by Al Jazeera on a confessed Chinese spy imprisoned in Thailand revealed that the deposed mayor of a Tarlac town was one of the spies sent by China to the Philippines. Of course, she vehemently denied this allegation. If it is verified to be true, it would be a significant intelligence lapse.
The hearings at the House established that the massive inflow of Chinese workers and money supposedly to run the POGOs allowed Chinese criminal elements to plant their roots here. The officials of the Presidential Anti Organized Crime Commission found evidence of criminal activities including human trafficking, torture, money laundering and international digital scamming operations in the POGO establishments they have raided.
The one conclusion we have ascertained from the hearings is PAGCOR’s incapability of regulating POGO operations. We ought to remain vigilant that no variation of POGOs will be allowed to operate by another name at year-end, the deadline BBM gave to end all of their operations. There will be those who will try to convince BBM to make exemptions to his closure order.
It was spine-chilling to hear witnesses reveal during the hearings how some PNP officials made the national police a criminal organization during the Duterte era. Some PNP officials close to Duterte were supposedly killing people right and left on the claim that they are drug dealers or operators. Even a retired general whose classmates at the Philippine Military Academy claimed to be clean was murdered when he got in the way of a former police official close to Duterte.
There were other blood-curdling stories about how extrajudicial killings were carried out supposedly by Duterte confidants. Southeast Asia’s only Christian country should not accept this as simply normal. Frankly, it is doubtful if our justice system can deal with the filth left behind by the Duterte regime. The only way for our country to come clean is to let the International Criminal Court handle these cases because the tentacles of power within our country will not allow justice to be served.
What happens next after everything we have heard and learned from the congressional hearings the past weeks? Realistically? Nothing. Senators who got entangled with the Napoles PDAF scam got absolved and have been reelected. Crime pays in our country. Unfortunately, we are a failing state, if not a failed one.
Our executive and judicial branches failed to make the characters in the Pharmally case accountable. Senator Dick Gordon uncovered a lot of mess in that transaction that cost us, Filipino taxpayers, P18.8 billion. What is so criminal about this is they plundered the National Treasury at the time of extreme emergency with COVID-19 when every centavo was needed to save lives. And Duterte openly defended the stinking Pharmally deal too.
Lloyd Christopher Lao, the procurement head of the budget department, was implicated in the Pharmally mess and only recently arrested in Davao City. Lao has a standing warrant of arrest for graft issued by the Sandiganbayan First Division on Sept 12, which has a ridiculously low recommended bail of P90,000 and so he is now out on bail.
If our legislators really want to go after corruption, there is something they should investigate. Baguio City Mayor Benjie Magalong researched the racket on the favorite kickback sources of politicians: flood works, road widening, asphalt overlay and highway safety devices. For items like rock netting and cat’s eyes, crooks in government divide up to 70 percent of the multibillion-peso costs.
Rock nettings line mountain roadsides in the Cordilleras, Southern Tagalog, Bicol, Visayan Islands and Mindanao. Two types: active, or thin wire mesh with studs; passive, or thicker wire catch fences. DPWH’s Detailed Unit Price Analysis (DUPA) of both is by square meter.
According to Magalong, in 2018 the DUPA was already overpriced at P17,000/sqm. In 2023 it zoomed to P25,000/sqm. The budget ballooned starting 2020. “A political cabal took over that year,” Magalong recalls. “The budget deflated in July 2023 after I exposed the corruption.” It reinflated this 2024, an election fundraising year. In 2019, DPWH engineers claimed that the DUPA was only P14,000/sqm. Magalong disproved them, showing a signed contract for P17,000.
Magalong requested Steel Asia, where he was once SVP-Operations, for costs. It quoted only P6,000/sqm, all anti-rust, zinc-coated, high-grade steel. In July 2024, after presenting his study in Zamboanga City, a civil engineer corrected him: it’s only P4,300/sqm, “our pass-on price to private developers.”
That means, the politicos overpriced each sqm almost six times. Cordillera subcontractors confided in Magalong, “Pagod na po kami.” Doing what? “Delivering kickbacks.” How? “In suitcases.” To whom? “The contractors.” Who are they? “The politicos.” Who supplies the materials? “The same politicos.”
“Minimum kickback is 40 percent plus 10 percent as a contractor. And another 10 percent as a supplier. The politicos pocketed 60 percent of the P46.61 billion – or P28 billion.”
It will be very surprising if our legislators will investigate Mayor Magalong’s expose. That will suggest the world is about to end.
Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected]. Follow him on X @boochanco.
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