Back to regular programming

With the typhoons gone, floodwaters mostly subsided and the SONA now almost a thing of the past, the country, the media and our politicians return to “regular programming.”

I don’t listen to the political news much, but it was interesting to note that two members of Congress immediately came out, one to deny involvement in e-sabong while the other appealed to netizens not to generalize and judge members of Congress as “All Corrupt.”

I suppose that there are still some members of Congress who have a conscience or are too new in office to be accused of corruption and plundering flood control funding. But I advise them not to appeal to the public’s judgmental mood. Filipinos are angry!

First and foremost, many Filipinos suffered and lost homes, possessions, as well as livelihood on only the fourth tropical storm of the year. Second, they have been experiencing floods every year, some even all year, year after year.

In the ’70s and ’80s, people accepted that a typhoon would bring so much rain, and it would be normal to have one or two big floods a year and these would dry up quickly. But now floods have become regular and last weeks to six months.

While the private sector has been penalized, crucified and criticized on social media and blamed for the flooding, the national and local governments were never subjected to such accountability and condemnation.

A number of local officials from congressmen, governors, mayors are accused of dredging sand, quarrying for filling material for developers, reclamation projects, illegal mining and illegal logging, but has anybody been arrested?

But now things are so bad that the President of the Philippines publicly condemned corrupt, shameless people who stole flood control funds, right on the floor of Congress.

“Mahiya naman kayo!” he declared in Congress, but to whom was he addressing his great for-TV elocution? The public assumed it was for his hosts in the joint session. Did he really publicly insult his hosts?

One would think that such condemnation would have been met with contempt, sullen silence, but instead congressmen and senators all stood up and gave a resounding applause as if a common enemy had been singled out.

Was this response meant to diffuse or neutralize President Bongbong Marcos’ attempt to call out the guilty and to serve notice that their days are numbered? Perhaps PBBM should revisit his father’s memory and ask why he closed Congress in 1972 and replaced it with a presidential-parliamentary form of government?

If only the dead could talk…

But who was President Bongbong Marcos referring to? Was it really the DPWH? I think not. He could have simply accepted the courtesy resignation of Sec. Manny Bonoan and all his usecs and asecs, if the President believes they were guilty. But he did not.

So, was the President actually referring to governors, mayors, etc.? If so, there was no need to call out the local officials in such a seemingly defeated and frustrated tone. PBBM only needed to “let the dogs out” at the DILG, PNP and NBI to go after corrupt LGU officials.

In the last two days after the 4th SONA, DPWH Secretary Manny Bonoan has patiently explained in almost every AM radio talk show how the process goes for planning, funding and construction of flood control projects.

He gives all the details but always stops short of spilling the beans. He avoids saying who made insertions in the national budget, he does not talk about the fact that there are “congressmen-contractors” or “congressmen-commissioners” who either have their own construction firms or farm out projects to friends or associates in civic organizations.

The good secretary explains that the Executive department originally determined where flood control projects were essential, the DPWH designed and requested for the necessary funding and finally the projects were bidded out.

Congress always brags that they have the power of the purse or the constitutional mandate to allocate funds for the Executive. All in the interest of checks and balance in terms of integrity and accountability.

But Congress, both the Senate and the Lower House, have not checked and balanced the budget and the projects for integrity’s sake. They have meddled in it year after year, administration after administration, under the direction of political dynasties, which now include the third generation.

This is why we have reached the point where the President declared with a veiled threat that he will not tolerate any insertions or any attempt to modify the budget for corrupt purposes.

If the Marcos Jr. administration is courageous enough to go after “the rich, the powerful and the well-connected” suspects in the case of the missing sabungeros, perhaps PBBM can do the same against “the rich, the powerful, corrupt and shameless” thieves in public office.

The Commission on Audit, the DPWH, the NBI-PNP and the academe can all be formed into a powerful fact-finding body and, given their inherent powers and authority, they can be just as powerful and fearful as the ICE teams in the US.

One advantage that PBBM has is that he is no longer running for office, he cannot be blackmailed by any political bloc, given how divided and combative all of them are toward each other. He has also shown that when he has made his mind up, things will happen.

If President Bongbong Marcos wants to write his version of history and personal legacy, making an example of the “walang hiya” will be more monumental than P20 per kilo rice. God bless him if he does.