No relief during price crisis: Gov’t has stolen everything

Here’s what plunder does. Government has meager cash to ease hardships brought about by Middle East war.

Most of today’s emergencies were foreseeable. Cash should’ve been built up for:

• Rush repatriation of up to 2.4 million distressed overseas workers;

• Fuel discount for 1.9 million jeepney, tricycle, taxi drivers;

• Diesel and gear for 2.3 million fishermen;

• Fertilizer aid to five million rice, corn, vegetable farmers;

• Feeds aid to six million backyard hog and poultry raisers;

• Soft loans to micro and small entrepreneurs.

Politicos are insatiable. Their plunder has become routine. Recall:

• 2000, P130 million stolen from tobacco taxes and delivered to the First Family in suitcases;

• 2001, alias Jose Velarde presidential bank account with P3.2 billion deposits;

• 2003, alias Jose Pidal bank account with P321 million;

• 2004, P728-million ghost fertilizers from Malacañang to congressmen allies, even in urban districts;

• 2007, diversion of P900 million in Malampaya gas field revenues to Dept. of Agrarian Reform onto fake NGOs;

• 2013, P10-billion congressional pork barrels to 20 senators and 100 congressmen fixed by Janet Lim Napoles;

• 2019, Dept. of Energy giveaway of $545-million Chevron stake in Malampaya to presidential crony Dennis Uy’s firm with only $100 capital; that company now rakes in $1.15 million or P66.7 million a day, money that should go to state-owned Philippine National Oil Company;

• 2020-2021, P65.19-billion “purchase” of fake, faulty pandemic supplies, of which P10.85 billion went to Pharmally of Presidential Special Economic Adviser Michael Yang;

• 2016-present, P1.7-trillion fake, substandard, overpriced flood control projects to favorite senators and congressmen of two Presidents.

Photo by Philippine News Agency

Flooding is the most predictable of disasters, given stronger, more frequent typhoons due to climate change. Yet congress supermajority members of the Duterte and Marcos admins used ghost, substandard, overpriced flood works to pocket billions of pesos each.

Now politically divorced, the “unithieves” make it look like only the other is crooked. Divide and conquer is their way to stay in power – to plunder even more.

In 2019 the Duterte admin’s Budget secretary parked P71-billion flood funds with selected lawmakers. Of that, P2.4 billion was for the then-Speaker, an ex-president. Another P1.9 billion was for the House majority leader, now deceased.

The DBM secretary allotted hundreds of millions for a Bicol town that doesn’t even flood. The mayor of that town then was his daughter’s adoptive father-in-law.

In his father’s last three years in office, Paolo Duterte got P52 billion in flood funds. Still his Davao City First District and the whole locale flood up with slight rains.

The present admin misappropriated for pork barrels P350 billion in 2023, P500 billion in 2024 and P475 billion in 2025 – totaling P1.325 trillion.

Included were P60 billion from PhilHealth and P110 billion from Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. – for more flood scams.

There’s worse. The Marcos estate owes P205 billion in taxes that estate administrator Bongbong Marcos refuses to pay. Government has yet to recover P125 billion stolen wealth of Ferdinand Sr. and Imelda Romualdez Marcos.

Filipinos remember BBM’s two infamous lines in 2025:

“Mahiya naman kayo,” he admonished in his State of the Nation Address, July 28. He referred to senators and congressmen who pillaged public works funds. The very plunderers jumped to their feet and applauded in feigned innocence.

“Merong makukulong bago mag-Pasko,” he vowed on Nov. 13. By then he had named the only 15 contractors who cornered P100 billion of P545-billion flood control funds, 2023-2025. Christmas came and went with no one locked up except contractor-spouses Curlee and Sarah Discaya.

DPWH Usec. Roberto Bernardo and Bulacan district engineer Henry Alcantara named names in Senate Blue Ribbon committee hearings. Implicated were Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, Public Works chief Manuel Bonoan, Budget chief Amenah Pangandaman, Usecs. Trygve Olaivar, Adrian Bersamin, Jojo Cadiz and former Special Envoy Maynard Ngu.

Also, Senators Chiz Escudero, Joel Villanueva, Jinggoy Estrada, Mark Villar. Plus ex-Speaker Martin Romualdez and ex-appropriations committee heads Eric Yap and Zaldy Co.

Co in turn implicated BBM. He has fled the country. Authorities cancelled his passport. The court wants him arrested.

BBM’s Independent Commission for Infrastructure, formed Sept. 15, never investigated Romualdez. Anyone who incriminates BBM is tagged “destabilizer.”

Last weekend ICI announced it was closing down by end-March. It referred to the ombudsman and Dept. of Justice only nine indictments involving 65 individuals.

ICI’s original assignment was to scrutinize 22,000 flood works, highway rock nettings and cat’s eye projects since 2016. With its demise, ICI was supposed to pass its workload on to an Independent People’s Commission. But BBM never certified such bill as urgent, and plunderers in Congress rejoice at his disinterest.

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