The long game

Are the anti-corruption forces ready to play the long game?

They have to be, because their foes are. With billions at stake, with their political and family fortunes and the inheritance of their children and great-great-grandchildren at stake, the crooks play to win. And many have a proven track record of success.

These days it might look like the thieves are being drowned in the Great Flood of public opprobrium, but these creatures thrive in dirty water, and their swimming skills can win them an Olympic gold.

Their assets may be frozen and their fleets of luxury vehicles impounded, but these are the ones under their names. There must be other accounts, other fixed assets under other names, in the Philippines and overseas, that they can access outside the radar of the anti-graft and anti-money laundering police.

And a number of them are so well-connected that they can muddle or divert probes, discredit critics and investigators or sue them – and win.

Or else realpolitik can get in the way, and put an end to high-profile probes. We’ve seen this in the Blue Ribbon committee, where Sen. Panfilo Lacson’s resignation as chairman is seen as a way to save his former running mate Vicente Sotto III from losing the Senate presidency.

The Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI), which people had thought would pick up where the Blue Ribbon and House infra comm left off, has instead gone out of its way to protect the presumed innocence of the big shots implicated in the grand looting of national coffers.

If the ICI had been formed earlier and had handled the initial hearings instead of the Senate and House, we would never have seen those photos presented by sacked engineer Brice Hernandez of the huge piles of cash supposedly meant for kickbacks to senators and public works officials. All of those implicated, after all, are presumed innocent until convicted with finality, which could happen when many of us carping critics are already dead.

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Meanwhile, speculations continue to swirl over whose house wall Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong crashed into while carrying out what he thought was his mandate as ICI investigator of flood control anomalies.

Magalong is not changing his story that he quit the ICI after a Palace press briefing effectively sent him the message to “stand down” and to “stop investigating” the flood control scandal.

Presidential Communications Undersecretary Claire Castro dismissed this as “intrigue.” She told us on One News’  “Storycon” last week that it was President Marcos himself who had designated Magalong as ICI special adviser and not investigator. Castro said this was after Magalong refused to resign as Baguio mayor so he could concentrate fully on the ICI.

Magalong had said he appeared to have “struck a nerve” and might “have hit too close to home.” But he has since dialed back his pronouncements and seems ready to drop the subject, at least for now.

Castro had asked: “Whose nerve?” She dared Magalong to “name names.”

Pressed about it on Storycon, Magalong jokingly likened our line of questioning to “torture.” He told us only, “Let’s leave it at that.” Last Friday, he also skirted telling The STAR’s online show “Truth on the Line” whose home he might have gotten too close to in his probe.

Responding to my question, he said he and Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon have not yet looked into flood control projects in Ilocos Norte, where President Marcos’ son Sandro is a congressman. Former Ilocos Sur governor Luis Singson said last month that the Marcos bailiwick should be among the first to be subjected to the probe, adding that four contractors linked to the Discayas have many big projects in the province.

It’s a valid observation. Magalong told me that Dizon is expected to include Ilocos Norte in the inspections. For the sake of credibility, let’s hope this happens sooner than later.

Magalong told me he had no regrets in his short-lived stint in the ICI, whose members he continues to respect. He also urged people to give the ICI a chance to do its work as the commission sees fit, although he said its proceedings could be partly opened to the public – a divergence from the stand of its chairman.

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Presumably, Magalong is happy to have imparted pointers on investigating the anomalies during his interactions with Dizon. Magalong has turned over to his replacement, retired national police chief Rodolfo Azurin, the voluminous notes and documents that he put together in those few days with the ICI.

Magalong’s departure from the ICI, however, continues to fuel speculations about the nerve that he struck. He is rumored to be the choice of disgruntled military officers (and PMA alumni who entered the police), mostly retirees and mid-level officers in the active service, to head a civilian-military junta.

But Magalong, like his fellow PMAyer and veteran mutineer Antonio Trillanes IV, maintained that a coup at this point is in the realm of wishful thinking, leaderless and with no support from the military top brass.

The mayor obviously knows who the disgruntled retired officers are. He indicates that while he sympathizes with their grievances against corruption and other anomalies in government, he disagrees with a leadership change and the proposed means to that end.

Like Lacson, Magalong is instead continuing his anti-corruption advocacy, even as issues are hurled in attempts to discredit them. So far the issue that refuses to go away is the speculation – and not just from the DDS – that they are protecting Marcos’ relatives, starting with resigned speaker Martin Romualdez.

Magalong is working with the Mayors for Good Governance to launch a website where government projects can be uploaded for public scrutiny and monitoring – for costing, implementation and completion, political credit grabbing and related attempts at using public resources for personal ends.

Lacson, who is still being wooed by Tito Sen to return to the Blue Ribbon (yes is yes, no is no, Lacson said), is expected to continue his anti-corruption exposés in his well-researched privilege speeches, no longer constrained by Blue Ribbon rules.

The more tortuous challenge in the long game, however, is in seeing the looters punished. This is the exclusive realm of those in charge of the legal system – a blackhole impervious to any exposé by lawmakers, multimedia and angry netizens.