Pardon the sarcasm, but when I read in the news that our Congressmen wanted to meddle in the use not only of the P5 billion in school building funds for the year 2009, but also for the other billions of funds for roads, bridges and other infrastructure, you can immediately smell the corruption in the air! C’mon, a month and a half of the year 2009 is practically gone and what has Congress done so far? Investigations here and there, but as far as their constitutionally mandated task in the enactment of laws, they’re zero!
Don’t get me wrong, I’m for that Congressional investigation on the so-called “Alabang Boys scam” or that the Senate is headed in the right direction with regards their going for the jugular when they are going to haul to the Senate the Court of Appeals and Regional Trial Court Judges that blocked the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) examiners who were about to examine the books of those ill-fated Rural Banks under the Legacy Group. But all these are secondary to their task of enactment of new laws.
We all know that all these Senate and Congressional investigations are done purportedly “in-aid-of-legislation” but last year when I asked Rep. Raul del Mar how many laws has Congress enacted that emanated from a Congressional hearing, sadly his answer was, “none!”
There are three basic pillars of governance, the Executive that executes the laws made by the Legislative Branch and the Judiciary that adjudicates any problems between the two. So, where is it in the Constitution that authorizes our Legislators to execute or implement infrastructure projects?
I’m sure that many Filipinos out there are just sick and tired of hearing all those corruption issues that seem to be everyday fare in our newspaper and on television. Have the Filipinos become callous or are they seething, in a slow boil, waiting for another type of EDSA revolt to overthrow this government? It’s too close to the 2010 Presidential elections, another EDSA is no longer possible. But Congress should be warned not to push their luck.
We know why Congress wants a piece of the action especially with DPWH projects, because 2009 is the campaign period for the 2010 elections, where our Congressmen will once more present themselves to their constituents for re-election. Where do you think they would get the money to fuel their election campaign, if not from infrastructure projects where they get their “SOP”!
The big news today is that the Philippines will face a huge cut in foreign aid because the corruption is “deeply entrenched.” Sad but true! Our huge foreign projects are funded by the World Bank (WB) and that very telling report that banned Filipino contractors from participating in WB projects have shamed all Filipinos!
But what is happening in the Senate? Even Sen. Joker Arroyo questioned the WB report and worse, he pointed out certain corruption issues that also plagued other WB projects! This is akin to saying that when Pedro was caught by his mother taking cookies from the cookie jar, he then points to his brother Jose for also stealing from the cookie jar!
If the Philippine Senate cannot get into the bottom of this mess (imagine Sen. Miriam saying that if the First Gentleman will not attend the probe, we will go to him) then we shall never find out who were the characters that colluded to bag those huge foreign funded contracts. Right now our only recourse is for the World Bank to publish those names and let hell break loose; then we can go into the streets to demand the resignations of those public officials who are named in that report.
If we hit a blank wall and really get nothing out of these corruption reports, then I suggest that we go to the International Courts and see if they would entertain the filing of criminal charges against these corrupt officials; after all, these are WB funded projects where they colluded to get money from. Perhaps it is time for the United Nations (although I do not have much faith in this international body) to create a special court only on corruption because they know too well that the corrupt are never tried in their homeland. If they do, more often than not, they get away scot-free!
This is why I want to hold a Constitutional Convention (con-con) so that we can change the Cory Constitution that virtually returned old patronage politics after we removed the unlamented conjugal Marcos Dictatorship. Alas, cha-cha has been muddled by Congress itself, who wants to turn into a constituent assembly so they could extend their terms of office! These people have turned their back against the people and we will allow them to extend their terms? God forbid!