'Outsourcing' to catch grafters in RP

A businessman to the hilt, Sen. Mar Roxas II gave a very novel idea on how the Philippines could gain more headway in the fight against corrupt officials and grafters in government. “Why not resort to “outsourcing” the fight against corruption since grafters in the Philippines were caught while they were abroad?” Roxas rhetorically asked.

In my google search to find the easiest definition of “outsourcing,” it is a business term for what has literally become known as hiring a consultant, independent contractor, or freelancer to do a specific task or tasks for an organization in which the organization either does not have the time or the expertise to do it on their own.

Roxas made a tongue-in-cheek suggestion for “outsourcing” the government’s fight against corruption at the joint Senate public hearing Saturday on the so-called “Euro-generals.”

He recalled the case of former Armed Forces of the Philippines comptroller Gen. Carlos Garcia whose two sons and wife were caught by American customs authorities with undeclared sums of money totaling $100,000 when they arrived at the San Francisco airport in December 2003.

And now we have retired Police Gen. Eliseo de la Paz who, along with his wife, was caught by Russian customs authorities for non-declaration of 105,000 Euros while about to leave Moscow airport last month. Adding to this rogue’s gallery, Roxas included the case of former Undersecretary Jocelyn “Jocjoc” Bolante who, after being implicated in the P728 million fertilizer fund scam, fled the country three years ago. Fortunately, he was caught at the Los Angeles airport for US visa violation and deported back to the country last month.

Roxas, who co-chairs the Senate foreign relations committee looking into the case of the “Euro-generals,” echoed the growing disappointment among the Filipinos over the seeming inability of our own government to catch crooks. At the Senate hearing over the weekend, the Senators were one in expressing dismay that such culture of corruption is made worse by the so-called “esprit de corps” in both the police and military establishments.

De la Paz, now retired, belongs to Philippine Military Academy Class 1976 and is a mistah of incumbent Philippine National Police director-general Jesus Verzosa, AFP chief of staff Gen. Alexander Yano, among other classmates they have in the police and in the military. But in fairness to Verzosa, he immediately endorsed to the Ombudsman the recommendation of the PNP internal investigation to prosecute De la Paz for graft and other criminal raps. Pending the formal filing of charges against the ex-PNP comptroller, Verzosa ordered also to withhold all the retirement benefits of De la Paz.

Verzosa has firmly reassured the lawmakers no one would be spared. For sure, he would. During his courtesy call at The STAR last week, Verzosa handed out to us his calling card with the following printed at its back: “Please help our policemen enforce the law.” So I teased him his calling card will get me into more trouble with his policemen.

Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, who presided the first half of the Senate hearing on the “Euro-generals,” succinctly put it that De la Paz had made himself the sole “escape goat” for his superiors in what she believed was a grand coverup. But we have to take the words of Miriam with a grain of salt for saying it. She could not completely dissociate her long-standing grudge with Department of Interior and Local Government Secretary Ronaldo Puno whom she accused as behind the alleged vote-rigging during the 1992 presidential elections where she ran but lost by a small margin to former President Fidel V. Ramos.

If Miriam will have her way, she would have both Puno and Verzosa charged along with the so-called “Euro-generals” following the command responsibility principle. Miriam wanted to hold both Puno and Verzosa accountable for allowing the trip of the “Euro-generals” to attend the Interpol meeting in Moscow.

Sen. Loren Legarda made a valid motion that the Senate should secure first an incident report coming from no less than the Russian federal customs authorities to get the full picture of the case “without biases and prejudices” that might blur the individual judgment of each Senator. Sen.Roxas informed them that he and Sen.Panfilo “Ping” Lacson, who himself once served as PNP chief, had separately wrote the Russian ambassador in Manila Vitaliy Vorobiev, to provide the Senate with the official incident report to help shed light on this case.

Although I know where he was coming from, I felt sorry for Sen. Richard Gordon when he insisted that the PNP, as an organization vested with “civilian” character under the law that created it, should not follow the “chain of command” principle as strictly adhered in the military. Gordon had loosely referred to the “chain of command” with the “esprit de corps” or the so-called “old boys club” culture among men in uniform.

At first, Gordon castigated Police Superintendent Samuel Rodriguez who reasoned out he was observing the “chain of command” to explain why he did not report directly to the superiors of De la Paz about the P10 million cash advance being charged by the PNP comptroller to the confidential/intelligence funds of the PNP. Remember, a police superintendent is colonel in the equivalent rank in the military while De la Paz, as a police director has the equivalent rank of Major General in the AFP.

Only after several more questions and perorations, did Gordon finally get to his point across on his real concern over the “mistah” culture among fellow PMAers. Gordon blamed this kind of “old boys club” culture in both the police and military that has obviously made De la Paz so fast and easy with the handling of PNP monies under his comptrollership. With the knowledge he can get away with it, Gordon rightly noted, De la Paz went through our airport without being accosted with his more than 105,000 Euros in their luggage. It took the Russians to catch him.

Sen. Roxas may have spoken facetiously about it. But his suggestion for the Philippine government to outsource its anti-corruption campaign is indeed not wishful thinking because others are better in catching our grafters here who flee to these countries.