In the weeks since, investigations by the House of Representatives (in conjunction with hearings on the government’s annual budget for next year), the Senate, the Department of Justice, and more recently, the new Secretary of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) – the previous one being one of the first heads to roll in the growing scandal – and a new investigative commission created by the president, as well as other agencies, have uncovered a breathtaking web of corruption involving hundreds, if not thousands, of government officials and employees, including many members of the House and Senate, about two dozen construction contractors, and the Philippine Contractors’ Accreditation Board (PCAB). Every day brings new details in what has become known as “Floodgate” here; just today (Sept. 17), the Speaker of the House, a cousin of the president, was forced to resign after being implicated.
All of this is happening, coincidentally, in the wake of public uprisings against government corruption that almost brought down the government in Indonesia, and did overthrow the government of Nepal. The similarities between the situations in those countries, especially Indonesia, and the situation here are disturbing. There are major rallies planned in Metro Manila and other parts of the country for this coming Sunday, Sept. 21, and while I don’t think things will go sideways – for one thing, Marcos has openly encouraged people to demonstrate, so long as they do it peacefully – everything feels a little bit on edge.
On a personal note, my 20-year-old daughter asked me the other night if she could attend one of the two big rallies planned in Manila with a group of her friends and classmates. If I was a Filipino parent, I might scold her and tell her to express her views in more productive ways. But I am not, I am an East Coast Gen X-er and aging punk who knows what teargas tastes like, and is of the opinion that if you don’t at least flip a car over you’re not trying hard enough, so I told her to go and be heard.
I did not recommend that she flip over any cars, however, and of course I gave her all the usual “how to stay safe in a demonstration with 300,000 other people” tips. Plus, although she doesn’t know it, the entire Manila Times photography squad, our building security (The Manila Times’ offices are near the park where the rally will be held), and several personnel from the Manila Police District will be keeping an eye out for her and her group. Dad’s got connections.
In my day job-life, I have steered away from writing about the “Floodgate” situation as much as possible, for reasons. However, it has been impossible to avoid it entirely; in poking through my folders earlier this evening, I realized that I’ve actually had a lot to say about the situation. So, as a public service, in a sense, I’ve decided to repost my columns on the topic, as well as The Manila Times editorials I wrote about it. I think it provides some insights, and in reading through my work of the past couple of weeks, it’s an interesting study in shifting thoughts on the matter. Links to the originals are embedded in the titles.
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Plenty of drama, but will there be real change? (Editorial, August 23)
IN the weeks since President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. used his recent State of the Nation Address to express his frustration with the “shameful” corruption plaguing the country’s flood control projects, there has been a great volume of sound and fury from both the Executive and Legislative branches of government, duly reported in detail by the nation’s media, present company included. Committees in both houses of Congress are investigating the scandal, new committees are being formed to pursue the matter further, and almost every day brings new, shocking revelations of the results of some lawmaker’s or another’s personal “investigation.”
For all the public drama that our collective leadership is working energetically to create, it seems the public’s reaction, at least so far, is a collective stifled yawn. We have been here before, over and over again, for almost four decades. Corruption in public works projects of all kinds, not just those intended for flood control, seems to be perceived as a fundamental part of governance at all levels in the Philippines.
No one condones it, of course, and it is a constant source of public mistrust and frustration with government, but the most obvious public sentiment is resignation. These occasional “anti-corruption” campaigns have never resulted in lasting change; if any of them had, we would not now be filling our headlines with breathless news of more examples of greed and fraud. What the public wants to know, and has an absolute right to know, is how the outcomes will be different this time.
We understand this sounds quite cynical, but it is not our intention to downplay the seriousness of the astonishing corruption that is being exposed. President Marcos was right to condemn it is as shameful, and it is even more so when flood control projects are involved, because the consequences of the rampant, organized criminality being carried out by government officials and contractors put the lives, livelihoods, and property of ordinary Filipinos in grave danger. It is entirely proper, in fact absolutely necessary, that the full details of the corrupted projects and everyone involved in them are exposed.
However, it is far important that there are exemplary consequences for these criminal acts and breaches of the public trust. Even more importantly, it is vital that systemic changes be made to prevent the corruption from happening again.
Along those lines, we have a few suggestions that, if our leaders are sincere about meaningful reform, they should take to heart.
First, the pearl-clutching expressions of shocked concern by members of Congress do not distract us from the fact that most of the corruption being investigated now originates with lawmaker’s arrogant and self-serving wielding of Congress’ “power of the purse.” On more than one occasion, President Marcos has issued a stern warning that he will not tolerate unjustifiable budget insertions by Congress, and will veto those when the budget reaches his desk. He should be diligent in doing so; no public works project should originate from a Congressional budget insertion or application of “pork barrel” funds.
Second, a “zero-tolerance” policy toward potential conflicts of interest must be adopted and rigorously enforced. We have lately heard stories of government officials or their family members having a stake in businesses being awarded project contracts. It is incredible that these firms are not immediately disqualified and declared ineligible for any bidding. In managing this issue, the government could consider seeking the advice of institutions such as the Asian Development Bank or the World Bank, which have developed and efficiently maintain robust safeguard policies in their own project work.
Third, the application of administrative and judicial penalties must be swift, severe, and comprehensive. Every instance of massive corruption in the past – familiar examples are the infamous “pork barrel” scandal during the administrative of late president Noynoy Aquino, or the so-called Pharmally scandal during the term of former president Duterte – has, at best, resulted in one or two perpetrators being sacrificed, with more significant public figures able to escape accountability, usually after years of gaming the judicial system with clever legal maneuvering.
Finally, it is evident that there is something seriously dysfunctional about the system by which projects are created, bid out, and monitored by the responsible agencies, the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) being the one on the hot seat at present. This is another performance area where the assistance of the multilateral institutions and international development agencies would be most helpful; the government should swallow its pride and avail of it.
Corruption is the mistress of government
Rough Trade, August 31
FOR nearly two months, the issue of corruption in public works projects, specifically flood control projects, has dominated the headlines. It began with widespread flooding problems associated with the passing of tropical storm Crising on July 19-20, ramped up to a fever pitch with President Marcos’ inclusion of the topic in his State of the Nation Address the following week, and has kept up its momentum as new cases of corruption are revealed. The latest chapter in the drama, as of the end of the week, was the president’s order for all government officials, starting with those working in the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to be subjected to “lifestyle checks,” which was followed by the predictable parade of government personalities (including the President and officials of the Office of the Vice President, though not the Vice President herself) gamely avowing their willingness to submit to them.
It was the “lifestyle checks” thing that convinced me this sudden crusade of new-found morality had jumped the shark. The “lifestyle check” has been a go-to solution for rooting out corruption for decades, along with the threat to publicly disclose the “statement of assets, liabilities, and net worth” (SALN) that all government officials are required to file (that has also been brought up in the past couple of days), under the presumed premise that if one has a bunch of wealth, it must have been obtained by illicit means. The apparent crisis situation the country finds itself in with respect to corruption in flood-control project construction contracts is a rather damning indicator of how poorly the threat of “exposure” through either of those two means has worked over the years.
So, once President Marcos brought up the “lifestyle checks,” I realized, from my experience of being here through four presidential administrations so far, that the current drama is already near the end of the third act. Forget the dozens of pieces of proposed legislation that have been filed, forget the salacious hearings in the House and the Senate, forget the lifestyle checks or any official’s SALN revealing much. One or two greedy contractors, along with a few apparatchiks in the DPWH or other government offices, those too stupid or too reckless to adequately cover their tracks, will be sacrificed to complete the public relations exercise. Those who are good at what they do will lie low for a while, maybe even until the inevitable chaos of the turnover to a new administration in just under three years’ time, and the whole big corruption machine will start rolling again.
And yes, I realize that sounds terribly cynical, but tell me I’m wrong. Think about the unsatisfying outcomes of the so-called “priority development assistance funds” (PDAF) or “pork barrel” scandal of some years back, and how “pork barrel” rather quickly crept back into use in the form of the “budget insertion.” Or think about the near-constant incidences of corruption in agencies such as the Bureau of Customs, or the Bureau of Immigration. Consider these, and try to argue with a straight face that this time, things are going to somehow be different.
I believe that where the Philippines fails, and as a consequence has earned a reputation for being a terribly corrupt country, is not necessarily because corruption exists, but because the people who are rightly offended by being ripped off by their officials in government, and those few in government who are sincerely offended by it as well fundamentally do not understand that corruption is part of the human condition. Every government since the dawn of organized society, no matter what its form, has been afflicted by corruption. And will continue to be so, because people are people.
The big mistake the well-meaning people in the Philippines make is in believing corruption is something that can be “stopped.” It cannot; even lily-white societies like Singapore and Japan have to continually fight it, which is why not a week goes by that the news from those places does not contain at least one story about some miscreant official or another being caught and punished for doing something out of line. China, as another example, literally shoots corrupt officials if they are caught doing something particularly egregious, and locks others away for very long prison terms for lesser offenses. And yet China continues to be universally regarded as one of the most corrupt countries in the world.
This is not to suggest that anyone should resign themselves to the reality of corruption, and just accept it as the cost of doing business, but thinking that one grand effort can actually end the problem and prevent it from recurring is equally unproductive, and as bound to fail. Fighting corruption is not an objective, it’s a process, and in the countries that have relatively low levels of corruption – the aforementioned Singapore and Japan, and some European countries, for example – anti-corruption efforts are a permanent part of the framework of governance. The Philippines has all the tools to do that in terms of laws and regulations, but simply cannot find a way to use those tools fairly, consistently, and efficiently. And until it does, these occasional public circuses of “exposing” corruption are going to continue to be regular occurrences, with no real change the status quo.
President’s independent commission will need support (Editorial, September 3)
THE announcement by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. of his intention to form an independent commission to investigate the epidemic of corruption involving flood control projects is welcome news, and perhaps encourages some cautious optimism that meaningful reform can be achieved. The idea of an independent commission, however, is just one piece of a potential solution to the chronic problem of corruption in public works projects. Much will depend on how it is put together, the manner it which it will exercise the authority it can be given, and most importantly, how effectively other parts of the government, especially those not necessarily under the control of the president, will cooperate with the commission’s work. “The devil is in the details,” as the old saying goes, and there are a daunting number of details that must be addressed for there to be a chance that positive results can be achieved.
The first issue, of course, is who would be selected to serve on the independent commission. President Marcos said that he wants the members to have diverse backgrounds and experience, and that the commission would obviously have to include people with expertise in forensic investigation and legal matters. Candidates being consider would undergo strict screening to ensure impartiality and credibility, we have been told, with the president’s spokesperson adding, “[The commission’s] members must be truly independent and not engage in politics.”
That is reassuring, but on the other hand, those are minimal expectations. Besides legal expertise and sterling reputations without any hint of past or present conflicts of interest, the commission members will also have to include reliable people with strong subject matter expertise. People who have experience in public works project planning, execution, accounting, and safeguards are needed. For this, the president might consider including one or more people who have worked with one of the country’s development partners, such as the Asian Development Bank, World Bank, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), or the now-defunct US Agency for International Development (USAID), even if only on an advisory basis.
The second potential problem we see as a risk to the commission’s effectiveness is the coordination with the judicial system. As described, the work of the commission will involve investigating and then preparing applicable cases for prosecution, with those involving government officials being sent to the Office of the Ombudsman for further action, and those involving non-government personalities going to the Department of Justice (DOJ). Both of those agencies will need to act with more alacrity than they have typically demonstrated to resolve these cases and make their prosecution an effective deterrent against similar crimes. It will not do for cases to languish for months or even years before action is taken, and one way that this could perhaps be prevented is for the Ombudsman and the DOJ to establish dedicated teams to focus strictly on cases sent by the investigatory commission.
Likewise, the judiciary should consider establishing dedicated courts to handle cases originating with the independent commission. It is fair to neither those accused in cases nor the public expecting justice to be carried out for court proceedings to be bogged down in endless delays, and slow justice undermines the principle of accountability that the leadership is trying to establish.
Finally, Congress will need to find it within itself to cooperate with the work of the independent commission by curtailing its own “investigations” through its endless appetite for conducting hearings of poorly designed scope and questionable effectiveness. These exercises in public image management have rarely resulted in significant and long-lasting positive reform. And while we expect those lawmakers who are heavily invested in the ongoing hearings would vehemently disagree with that observation, the fact that we are here now with a national crisis of corruption on our hands in no sense inspires confidence in the “investigation in aid of legislation” as a tool for change.
As President Marcos said, the work to develop the independent commission and codify its makeup and scope of work in an executive order is ongoing. We hope that work is being carried out with care, and an appreciation of what good for the nation it could accomplish if it is done right.
The circus the country deserves
Rough Trade, September 9
I have a couple of useful topics for this week, but it hardly seems worthwhile to put them out for discussion while the entire country is still treading water in the tsunami of flood-control project corruption chatter, so I may as well ride the wave and share a few impressions from news and conversations that took place over the weekend.
The Manila Times’ front-page story yesterday (Monday) morning was frankly infuriating. The story covered statements by two senators, first the second-hand disclosure by Sen. Ping Lacson that an “Undersecretary Cabral” had called the office of Senate Minority Leader Vicente Sotto III to suggest that the senator could “insert whatever he wanted to insert” in the 2026 national budget for the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH). The second annoying statement came from Sen. Erwin Tulfo, who said that the requirement that one must be a contractor to become a member of the Philippine Contractors Accreditation Board (PCAB) was an obvious conflict of interest.
If you want to know why large-scale, institutionalized corruption persists in the Philippines, there are two of the many reasons right there. Lacson has styled himself as an anti-corruption crusader for his entire career in the Senate, and by all accounts he is personally upright; for example, he was always among the few legislators to decline his “pork barrel” allocation in years past. However, he has been marketing his “anti-corruption” personal brand for 18 years and counting (at the end of the current term, he will have spent 24 years in the Senate), with little to show for it; otherwise, we would not be where we are, just now learning the government has been bleeding P100 billion or more per year in taxpayer money due to just one specific category of corruption.
The national constituency would perhaps have greater confidence that the corruption scandal was being taken seriously if the likes of Sen. Lacson – and he is by no means the only one – would actually demonstrate seriousness. As opposed to, say, going on the radio over the weekend and floating innuendo about something that happened in someone else’s office like an old woman gossiping across the counter at the corner store.
For one thing, if it was Sen. Sotto’s staff who was involved in the alleged incident, then it should be Sen. Sotto who should comment on it. For another, fingering “an Undersecretary Cabral” as if everyone doesn’t already know who that is, or can find out with a click a two online, only makes the audience wonder if Lacson is actually describing a real incident. And if so, why he, or preferably his senate colleague who was targeted by an obvious ethical violation if not a criminal one, has not already prepared and filed the appropriate complaint before the Ombudsman. That is the proper, legally prescribed way to handle such things, and this was a call that was allegedly made more than three months ago.
If the effort to punish corrupt practices and take steps to prevent its recurrence is sincere, then perhaps a better approach would be to dial the self-righteousness down a couple notches, and actually take those steps. Of course, filing a case before the Ombudsman would mean making the story off-limits for attention-grabbing idle commentary, so the senator would have to find some different way to make a public display of looking busy.
Sen. Tulfo’s comments about the PCAB were baffling, to put it nicely. The PCAB has come under fire as part of the larger scandal for allegedly selling accreditations to fraudulent contractors, and that is obviously a serious issue that must be thoroughly investigated and prosecuted. But Tulfo wishes to review the enabling law for the PCAB, RA 4566 or the Contractors’ License Law, for the wrong reason, the fact that the law stipulates that only licensed contractors may sit on the PCAB board.
“How can they monitor, oversee, and regulate construction projects in the country, whether these are done properly, are not substandard, or are not ghost projects — if they themselves are also contractors? Clearly, there is a conflict of interest here,” he was quoted in the news story as saying.
Two things: First of all, that’s not what PCAB does. ‘Monitoring, overseeing, and regulating’ construction projects are the responsibility of the implementing agencies, the DPWH or whichever agency may be involved. PCAB is responsible for ensuring that contractors are properly qualified to do construction work, and conduct their business according to legal, ethical, and trade standards.
Second, the best people to judge whether a contractor meets the requirements for accreditation are, in fact, contractors. One would not, for example, assign schoolteachers to the accreditation board for nurses, or give electrical engineers the job of accrediting accountants. The Contractors’ License Law and the PCAB is an example of a good, or at least acceptably adequate system corrupted by bad people, or in other words, reasonable rules that were simply being flouted. The part of the broader scandal involving PCAB should be prosecuted on that basis.
In talking to ordinary people over the weekend, it is clear there is frustration with what is going on, but there is also a sense of resignation. The “investigations” and stream of shocking revelations, and the strident anti-corruption rhetoric coming from lawmakers and even the president and his officials is seen as being all for show; trivialized by those who should be doing something to fix it, probably because they all have at least a finger in the same honeypot. The people who are most frustrated by what is happening wonder why the Filipino people cannot stand up for themselves like their Indonesian neighbors. Maybe things don’t need to go as far as rioting and burning down officials’ houses, they say, but isn’t there even a little bit of that outrage here?
And they are exactly right. There is an old saying that people in democracies get the government they deserve; I get it, because I’ve watched that adage be proven true in the most horrifying way for the past eight months in my own country. With the current “flood control scandal” it is, not for the first time, being proven true here, too.
Flood control scandal: What’s happening, and what should happen next? (Editorial, September 13)
DEVELOPMENTS in the ongoing flood-control corruption scandal, which is quickly becoming the biggest political scandal in this nation’s history, are happening at such a rapid pace that it may be difficult to keep up with the news. We think it may be helpful to pause and take a look at where things stand at present, and what can be expected to happen in the coming days and weeks.
As of the end of the week, Friday, September 12, the scandal is being addressed in at least seven different bodies or departments. As noted in our front-page stories yesterday, the two most substantial developments of the past few days were the issuance of an Executive Order (EO 94) by the Office of the President creating the Independent Commission on Infrastructure (ICI) that will investigate anomalous government projects, and the filing of formal charges against two dozen Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) officials and private contractors by new DPWH Secretary Vince Dizon. This was announced earlier by President Marcos, but it took several days to develop the actual enabling order. The new commission will have three members, who are yet to be named, and will be given broad powers to investigate anomalies and forward cases for further prosecution to the appropriate offices, such as the Office of the President, the Department of Justice, the Ombudsman, or the Civil Service Commission.
In the absence of a Special Prosecutor or Inspector General’s office, the creation of the ICI is a good alternative, and can fill the gaps in the oversight of the Commission on Audit and the Office of the Ombudsman. The success or failure of the system being created, however, is entirely dependent on the competence and credibility of the people the president will name to the commission; that is not a criticism of the idea, it is just an acknowledgement of the unavoidable reality. If handled properly, the ICI has the potential to crush the culture of corruption in government and profoundly improve government reliability and efficiency. Therefore, the president must expect that his nominees to the panel and the work they will do will be subjected to extreme scrutiny.
The swift filing of criminal complaints by DPWH Sec. Dizon is encouraging as well, and indications are that he intends to continue doing so as sufficient evidence is collected against other conspirators. As with the creation of the ICI, this action is regarded as a good first step, but only one of many that must follow.
One concern that should be addressed as soon as possible, however, is that the Office of the Ombudsman is currently in a state of flux, under temporary leadership after the retirement of former Ombudsman Samuel Martires. The Ombudsman’s office has frankly never been a model of rapid action, and while we are certain that everyone there is diligently carrying out their duties, the unsettled appointment of a new Ombudsman is inevitably disruptive. This comes at a particularly inopportune moment, just as the number of cases that will have to be handled are likely to grow very quickly, and it leads to worries that resolutions of cases may be delayed.
Solving this problem falls squarely in the lap of President Marcos, who has yet to name Martires’ replacement, and has evidently been bothered a bit by the rather unseemly lobbying for the post by a few personalities. We realize that nominating a new Ombudsman is a difficult decision because of how critical the post is, but it is a decision that the president must make quickly.
Elsewhere, hearings on the flood control scandal are continuing in both the House Infrastructure Committee and the Senate Blue Ribbon committee, and based on some of the evidence and testimony that has emerged in those two proceedings, separate inquiries into officials or businesses that have been connected to the scandal have been initiated by the Bureau of Customs, Bureau of Internal Revenue, Department of Transportation, Department of Migrant Workers, and Commission on Elections. While the proactive approach being taken by the government in trying to bring the scope and scale of the corruption to light is certainly welcome, care should be taken to ensure that efforts are coordinated and vital information is properly shared.
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I invite everyone to read the news and commentaries in The Manila Times, as there is a vast amount of additional information; some of our columnists, in particular, live and breathe this stuff. I don’t know if I will comment on it again – probably, although I am still trying to steer away from the topic, because, as I said, reasons. Though it may be the biggest story of the year, or of the decade, or ever here, there are still other things going on, especially in the energy and climate action lane I’m best at and most comfortable in. But, I’ll share updates when necessary.
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