Institutional failure

Never been a fan of congressional investigations, but the current House investigations are making public things that would otherwise only be whispered about. We are learning more about how Duterte conducted his murderous anti-drug war. And we are learning how Duterte’s daughter is totally disrespecting the Filipino taxpayers through the way she uses public funds.

Father and daughter are both trying hard to avoid accountability. Duterte (the father) even threw under the bus the police officers he earlier reassured that he was taking responsibility for their kills. Now he is saying he is taking responsibility, but that criminal guilt is personal. In other words, the police officers are on their own when facing court cases.

Duterte’s daughter, on the other hand, is hiding behind her staff officers as they face the congressional committee to answer questions on how the OVP and DepEd, under her watch, used so-called confidential funds. Her chief of staff claimed to have no knowledge of how the funds were used, even though she signed a letter to the Commission on Audit asking it not to cooperate with Congress on the inquiry.

The handling by the OVP of public funds is so despicable that you can almost see them thumbing their noses at the public to dare them to intervene. They had the temerity to fabricate a name, Mary Grace Piattos, whose supposed signature appeared in acknowledgment receipts for confidential funds from the offices held by Sara Duterte: the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and, from 2022 to 2023, the Department of Education (DepEd). Probably just to emphasize that they are making fun of us, other documents included names resembling brands like “Nova,” “Oishi” and “Tempura.” In other words, bastusan na.

The handling of the funds is also quite strange. Land Bank of the Philippines Shaw Boulevard Branch head Jean Abaya revealed that OVP special disbursing officer Gina Acosta withdrew P500 million in confidential funds from their branch and placed it into duffel bags. The OVP’s confidential funds were withdrawn four times, with P125 million taken each time, from December 2022 to the first three quarters of 2023.

Former senator Leila de Lima commented in a post on X: “How crude. OVP personnel would regularly withdraw funds from the LBP over the counter and just walk away with tens of millions in large gym bags. They do not even arrange for armored vans. Pati estilo napakagarapal. Parang nang-holdup lang ng bangko. Which is actually the essence of the OVP and DepEd’s misuse of confidential funds by Sara’s offices that should not even have confidential funds in the first place.”

Accountability is important in a democratic government. Public officials are accountable to the people for their actions. Public officials should be ready to explain at any time why they did something or how they used public funds.

Refusal to explain should have consequences, but not in our country. Our public officials flaunt how they can spend public money as they wish or have the police murder suspected drug dealers who are poor.

The failure of the Ombudsman and the Commission on Audit to perform their duties under our Constitution is a lamentable institutional failure. The COA and the Ombudsman have shown themselves to be inutile or useless or incapable of functioning usefully as intended by law. Indeed, the Ombudsman does not even allow the public to view SALNs filed by public officials, negating the purpose of filing the document.

Everything we are learning from the congressional hearings on VP Sara’s apparent misuse of the funds in her offices should have elicited some reaction from the Ombudsman by now. It is also disappointing that the Commission on Audit appears to have been intimidated by VP Sara’s staff into accepting questionable documents used in liquidating cash advances, including those supposedly received by a “Mary Grace Piattos.”

We need a law that makes it mandatory for public officials to waive their bank secrecy rights as they file their SALN. Massive corruption is facilitated by bank secrecy. If the Dutertes have nothing to hide, a waiver of bank secrecy clears everything. It should not require an impeachment proceeding against VP Sara before the AMLC can make a public certification of the accounts.

Back in 2017, Deputy Ombudsman Arthur Carandang said: “We can confirm that we received bank transactions coming from the AMLC, generated by the AMLC for intelligence purposes.” When asked if the documents he had received from AMLC were the same as the ones Trillanes had submitted, Carandang said, “More or less, they have the same details.”

Where do we go from here?

The worst thing is our loss of outrage. Robbing the Treasury is a regular occurrence to the point that we no longer feel anything is wrong. Luckily, the two leading political dynasties are in a do-or-die battle for dominance and survival, or else we would have been robbed again without knowing it.

Now that we know we have been robbed, the two institutions supposed to safeguard the public purse, the Ombudsman and COA, should perform their jobs.

The Ombudsman quickly suspended the chairperson of the Energy Regulatory Commission based on what turned out to be a flimsy complaint. What the quad committee is revealing now should merit even a press release promising an investigation.

The Ombudsman may claim that only an impeachment trial can investigate VP Sara. But the Ombudsman must surely have the power to investigate the OVP underlings. Guilt, as Duterte said, is personal. OVP staff who followed illegal orders committed a crime.

Corruption, as blatant as what we are seeing now, will cause our country and our economy to fail. Pure love of our country on the part of the Ombudsman and COA officials should get them to move. Otherwise, continuing institutional failure will eventually spell our nation’s end.

Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected]. Follow him on X @boochanco.