‘Sumbong sa Pangulo’ receives 16,000 infrastructure complaints

MANILA, Philippines — Over 16,000 complaints received through the Sumbong sa Pangulo website would be forwarded to the newly created Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI), which has begun its investigation on anomalous flood control projects, a Palace official said yesterday.

“As of now, we have received 16,275 reports through sumbongsapangulo.ph. All of these will be forwarded to the ICI,” Presidential Communications Undersecretary Claire Castro said, without elaborating.

President Marcos launched the website in August to allow the public to report non-operational or anomalous flood control projects, some of which he had inspected.

Castro said the first meeting of the ICI was held on Tuesday at the Department of Public Works and Highways’ office in Manila. The commission has also started drawing up its organizational structure, she said.

Marcos created the ICI through Executive Order No. 94. The body, headed by retired Supreme Court justice Andres Reyes Jr., will investigate infrastructure projects in the past 10 years suspected of being tainted with corruption.

Former DPWH secretary Rogelio Singson and SGV and Co. country managing partner Rossana Fajardo serve as ICI members.

Retired police general Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong has been designated special adviser and investigator.

At the same press briefing, Castro lambasted Vice President Sara Duterte after she criticized Marcos’ handling of anomalous flood control projects.

In an interview on Tuesday, Duterte said Marcos should immediately address the flood control controversy instead of waiting for the findings of the ICI.

Castro laughed off the Vice President’s pronouncement, saying she may have been staying in a cave for a long time and is unaware of the urgent actions being undertaken by the President.

“Perhaps she needs high (prescription) glasses or a hearing aid so she can hear everything the President is doing, and his orders to law enforcement agencies and investigating bodies, including the ICI,” she said.

Asked to comment on the Vice President’s comment that the ICI was not “too little too late but nothing,” Castro said, “It appears that we have seen another talent of the Vice President – she’s actually good at making people laugh even if she’s not a comedian.”

“If we compare it with the previous administration, which itself admitted that the president was corrupt and that there were many ghost projects, what should we call that period? Living hell?” Castro said.

Castro maintained the Marcos administration would not resort to “EJK-style” probe in addressing anomalies, in an apparent reference to the bloody drug war of Duterte’s father, former president Rodrigo Duterte.

The Palace official also responded to Duterte’s challenge for Marcos to order a lifestyle check on all congressmen and their staff.

“Does the Vice President have moral ascendancy when it comes to matters relating to corruption?” Castro asked.

Bureaucratic layer

For former senator Richard Gordon, the ICI is just another layer of bureaucracy and that what the people want is “swift and certain justice.”

In a statement, Gordon said the country already has the Department of Justice, National Bureau of Investigation, Anti-Money Laundering Council, Philippine National Police, Commission on Audit, Civil Service Commission and the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. to handle the issue of anomalous flood control projects.

“The problem is not the lack of institutions – it is that they are not working,” Gordon pointed out.

“It is a good try by the President, but it shows that the forces of government are not working. Ironically, it was the President himself who first exposed this scam. Yet it now takes the President to go out of the field, because the very agencies mandated to act are not doing their jobs,” he said.

Gordon urged authorities to immediately file charges, freeze bank assets and seize properties of those involved, including dismissed Bulacan first district engineer Henry Alcantara.

He said COA and the DPWH should turn over key documents to relevant bodies to ensure airtight cases against those involved in the anomalies.

He also underscored the need for a new ombudsman “with independence, integrity and courage,” instead of forming ad hoc bodies that duplicate existing mandates. - Mark Ernest Villeza, Bella Cariaso