We feel you. We hear you. We will not disappoint you.
The message was not new. Still, it was good to hear Malacañang reiterating its reaction to the second installment of the Trillion Peso March yesterday.
It’s easy to believe the part about feeling and hearing the people’s pain. It’s the third part that will pose a challenge for the government, particularly in implementing long-lasting structural reforms to prevent a repeat of the institutionalized looting.
Various sectors have pointed out the role of political dynasties in allowing the corruption to take place on a grand scale. Are the dynasts in high office ready to finally change the system?
Apart from public impatience over the snail-paced justice system, there are also calls for restitution of the billions impounded from government-owned and controlled corporations to finance unprogrammed appropriations, the new pork barrel that was looted through anomalous flood control projects.
Among the amounts impounded for the pork barrel were a total of P60 billion from the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. and P107 billion from the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp.
This was made possible through a provision inserted by the 19th Congress during the bicameral conference on the national budget for 2024. The provision served as a blanket amendment of all the individual laws that created each GOCC.
Citing the 2024 budget law, the Department of Finance under Ralph Recto, now the “little president,” then issued an enabling circular for the impounding of the “unused” GOCC funds. From these purported savings, P107 billion in unprogrammed funds went to flood control projects – a jump from just P34 billion in 2023.
The government promised to return the funds impounded from PhilHealth and PDIC, through the 2026 General Appropriations Act, meaning it will be shouldered by taxpayers. Shouldn’t those who looted public coffers through anomalous flood control projects repay what was diverted?
And when will the Supreme Court rule on this fund diversion controversy? The judiciary – a co-equal and independent branch led by the SC – is a major part of the problem in Malacañang’s promise not to disappoint.
Several big fish might yet be tossed behind bars before Christmas, as the government has promised. But magical things can happen between a criminal indictment and final conviction in this country where even foreign investors have lamented the difficulty of dealing with justice for sale.
Fears that the thieves who stole up to a trillion pesos from national coffers will manage to get away, or will get a mere slap on the wrist, continue to fuel protest actions. It will take some convincing moves on the part of the government, the Office of the Ombudsman and the judiciary to allay those fears.