Shameless

Last month’s flooding could well be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. Everywhere, citizens are mobilizing to help fight the scourge that besets our society.

Everywhere, too, people find the Marcos administration’s response to the scourge of corruption seriously wanting. In his last SONA, President Marcos promised to name and shame those involved in the wanton theft of public funds allocated for flood control. That response is weak. What we need is sweeping institutional changes.

Speaker Martin Romualdez, under whose term corruption reached appalling proportions, makes a show about ensuring transparency of the bicameral committee proceedings. That has become irrelevant. The grand theft has happened in the 2024 and 2025 national budgets where existing laws that earmarked funds were simply ignored in the mad grab for patronage money.

One law, for instance, setting aside 80 percent of collections to fund health care was brusquely set aside and the subsidy for PhilHealth was reduced to zero. This instance alone makes the General Appropriations Act vulnerable to being declared unconstitutional. Such a ruling emanating from the Supreme Court will open the door to criminally charging our legislators.

Last Saturday, I attended the Pandesal Forum on the corruption problem. The two main speakers in that forum – Baguio Mayor Benjamin Magalong and former Appropriations Committee chair Isidro Ungab – were enthusiastically applauded by the crowd. They have emerged as the heroic truth-tellers of this time.

The low-key Ungab pointed out that the national budget is supposed to be the financial interpretation of our development plan. The gross distortion of our budget due to congressional insertions and, hence, corrupt projects negated this role. The net effect of all the corruption that has happened the past three years is the fact that the country is rapidly falling behind its own poverty alleviation goals.

The problem does not end with congressional insertions. Ungab pointed out that an agency vital to meeting our national development goals – the DPWH – is seriously handicapped by the fact that 70 percent of its senior officials are now career executive eligibles. Most of them were appointed to their posts on the intervention of politicians. No wonder our bridges are falling.

Mayor Magalong, for his part, indicated that his investigation into corruption cases has been continuing. He is raring to be summoned to congressional public hearings to unveil his large body of evidence.

Magalong declared his readiness to head up an investigative commission to look into the scourge of corruption afflicting nearly every aspect of government in this forsaken country. I doubt if the powers-that-be will risk appointing him to such a role.

The crocodiles are perfectly content going through the motions of an investigation by themselves.

Unplanned

Our traffic and our flooding problems draw from the same well: stand-alone projects that defy masterplanning. These stand-alone projects were undertaken without much coordination with either national government agencies or local governments. They are haphazardly designed and most often substandard – all to facilitate looting rather than promote development.

One glaring example of haphazard infrastructure investments is the C-5 Quirino Highway flyover built when Mark Villar was DPWH secretary. The flyover, built at a cost of P1 billion,  looks structurally sound. But it is in the wrong place.

The flyover blocks the route of the LRT-1 Cavite extension project. As a result the already much delayed extension project could not proceed.

Phase I of the rail extension project covering five stations in Parañaque was finally opened November last year – albeit with massive cost overruns. Phase 2 of the rail project from Las Piñas to Bacoor is now hopelessly delayed because of the flyover.

Las Piñas Rep. Mark Anthony Santos (who defeated Cynthia Villar in the district) is now calling on government to immediately dismantle the Mark Villar flyover. Unless that is done, the LRT-1 extension project is stymied. Much more will need to be spent rerouting the three affected stations, rebuilding the utility lines and negotiating new right-of-way deals. All that could take an eternity, causing not only our taxpayers to lose more money but commuters to expend much more time.

Construction of the additional rail line can only commence in 2026. Commuters who direly need this line to be completed might be forced to wait for years beyond the original timetable.

The flyover is a costly mistake. Dismantling it now will cause P1 billion to go to waste. Not dismantling it will add more years to the project and much more in additional costs.

How could the DPWH have decided to build a flyover right on the path of a planned commuter rail line? There are any number of possible answers to this question – plain stupidity being the least intricate one.

DPWH Secretary Manuel Bonoan must call to the carpet his officials responsible for this costly fiasco. The first to be called has to be Las Piñas-Muntinlupa district engineer Isabelo Baleros who oversaw the construction of the misplaced flyover.

Baleros is already involved in another controversy: the unauthorized transfer of flood control funds from his district to the DPWH head office. Heaven knows whatever happened to those funds.

The DPWH is a vulnerable agency. In 2021, 14 district engineers were sacked over corruption allegations.

DOTr Secretary Vince Dizon wants the LRT-1 Cavite extension project to proceed as quickly as possible. For that to happen, he must take Santos’ advice: scrap that costly mistake of a flyover.