Countdown

The head of a money-making agency is said to be promising campaign funding and his personal support to all the likely major presidential contenders next year, in return for his reappointment to the lucrative office.

Meanwhile, a point man in the administration’s push for Charter change or Cha-cha, which could allow President Arroyo to hang on to power beyond 2010, has reportedly switched allegiance to a major party and its tentative standard bearer.

The 2010 race is heating up, and time is running out for Cha-cha and this administration. The rats can smell the ocean coming up and are starting to abandon ship.

It’s not hard to abandon this ship, insiders say, with the crew knowing from sad experience that their captain sacrifices her crew to save her own neck when she finds it necessary.

Top officials, we hope, can now be bolder in resisting illegal or bizarre presidential orders, such as shutting down a TV network and arresting one of its newscasters. A youngish Cabinet member reportedly volunteered in jest to arrest the attractive newscaster, breaking the ice at the crisis meeting and putting an end to that idea.

Legal observers aren’t even worried that the President would be able to pack the Supreme Court with a total of seven new appointees this year – or even eight, if Reynato Puno succumbs to the lure of politics and quits as chief justice. The observers are counting on everyone switching loyalties to whoever wins in May next year. By noon of June 30, 2010, all debts – sinulat sa tubig or written in water in the first place, as Pinoys like to say – will be forgotten.

Until then, people will be holding on to evidence of official wrongdoing, to make sure that when nine and a half long years are over, at least some of the crooks won’t be able to take the money and run.

It’s like the twilight of the Bush administration, when Americans were just waiting for change to take place. When George W. Bush finally handed over power, to someone perceived to be his antithesis, his country heaved a sigh of relief that his eight years were finally over.

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A report yesterday said the administration of Barack Obama is trying to exorcise the demons of the Bush years by, among other things, refraining from using the term “war on terror.”

In the case of the Philippines, how do we exorcise the evil and corruption of nine and a half years? Some people argue that corruption cannot be eradicated in increments, that a culture is either corrupt or is not corrupt, and that all citizens must be committed to reforms and change at around the same time.

But even the most prosperous democracies with transparent systems of governance have not completely eradicated corruption. The big difference is how countries deal with the scourge.

The Chinese execute corrupt officials. The Koreans convicted, imprisoned and then pardoned two former presidents over corruption and other crimes. The Thais kicked out a popular but corrupt prime minister; the Italians re-elected one. The Taiwanese have indicted their former president, Chen Shui-bian, for corruption.

In Illinois, Gov. Rod Blagojevich was warned that he would be impeached and removed if he refused to step down amid accusations that he tried to sell the Senate seat vacated by Obama. Blagojevich ignored the calls, so he was impeached by the Senate and ousted after a four-day trial, with his deputy immediately sworn in to replace him. In functioning democracies, removal by impeachment is a promise, not an empty threat.

In our country, if we want to reduce if not eradicate corruption, the best legal minds should step in and help gather solid evidence that will pin down the big fish once the nine and a half years are over.

This will require a lot of painstaking work, attention to details and solid documentation – stuff that need not rely on the testimonies of often unreliable witnesses to be able to stand in court. This type of work can focus only on a few, which means a lot of fish will be able to get away. But as long as those that are caught are the largest ones, it will serve as a powerful message about upholding the rule of law.

The big fish should include those from the private sector who have helped perpetuate the culture of corruption through bribes and fat commissions. A businessman implicated in a current scandal, for example, has long used his ties to the powerful to arm-twist even lawmakers to award him lucrative contracts.

Another guy who started out as a jueteng lord successfully laundered his money and became a not-too-respectable banker, becoming embroiled in a swindling scheme in the late 1980s before vanishing from the limelight. Now he’s back in yet another scandal. If you don’t punish them, they keep coming back.

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As time runs out on this administration, it will be easier to break the code of omerta, find reliable witnesses and unearth more evidence of wrongdoing.

Every day it also becomes harder to push efforts to postpone the elections.

This is currently the biggest hindrance to Charter change to shift to a new system of government: for every incumbent elective official wanting to hold on to power beyond his term, there are up to 10 people wanting to replace him.

Major political groups are now deep in preparations for the elections just 15 months away, eager to have new officials from the President down to the local executives.

It’s the countdown to the end. The momentum for leadership change gathers speed every day and will prove unstoppable.