Corruption - direct cause of storm ruin

The health department’s day is never done. After saving lives in typhoon emergencies, government doctors had to warn flood-stricken folk about leptospirosis and dengue. And now department technicians must evaluate the condition of drenched hospital equipment. Damaged x-rays can spew radioactivity; malfunctioning gadgets can harm patients. Experts need to determine if inoperable machines properly are disposed.

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First, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo begged for disaster relief. It didn’t matter to her to solicit aid from the US in whose Washington DC capital she had pigged out only recently on a $15,000-steak dinner. Or from the UN near whose New York headquarters she had splurged $20,000 on another dinner nights later. Or from Europe, where she was when critics found out she had used up P4 billion in calamity funds for frequent foreign junkets.

Now she demands that industrialized states pay for RP’s rebuilding because their global warming had induced super-storms Ondoy and Pepeng. It’s as if the floods, mudslides and slow rescue weren’t offshoots of her admin’s corruption and ineptitude.

One direct cause of Ondoy’s massive deaths and destruction was the weather bureau’s failure to determine the unusually heavy rainfall. It has no Doppler radar near enough Metro Manila to track storm volumes and velocities. Weathermen have only antiquated radars at present, three of which are being upgraded to Doppler-class. The purchase of seven brand-new radars took so long because an admin congressman had tried to block it when he was eased out as secret supplier. When the orders finally were made last Feb., for delivery in a year, the Doppler unit price had doubled to $100 million. Another admin congressman, more powerful, had instructed all bidders to tack on the 50-percent overprice, to be paid in advance even before a winner was declared. Had the Malacañang allies not interfered, the new radars would have been in place since 2005.

Another direct cause of Pepeng’s floods was non-completion of the agriculture department’s 120 farm-to-market roads. Left unfinished, the project not only failed to lay down drainage canals, but also clogged up streams with construction debris. It enriched an agriculture undersecretary, recently called the agency’s dirtiest, but impoverish farmers whose crops were ruined by flood. Started in 2007, the roads were financed by a $150-million loan from Asian Development Bank. The undersecretary, aiming to run in next year’s election, demanded too hefty kickbacks from constructors that they could no longer continue the roadwork. His go-between was a British head of a Japanese consulting firm, which later folded up. The agriculture secretary has promised to investigate. But it’s unlikely he’ll ever get to the bottom of things, for he too is running next year. Meaning, both of them would be resigning after filing candidacies next month.

A slew of other frauds contributed to the flooding: indiscriminate grant of subdivision permits in flood-prone areas, allowing factory builders to land-fill creeks, forgetting to dig a Laguna de Bay spillway, neglect to remove squatters from riverbanks and lakeshores, failure to unclog sewers and tributaries, inability to stop forest denudation and littering, neglect to ensure quality public works, plain disaster un-preparedness, and, evident in Pangasinan, failure by dam operators to release overflows and warn citizens early enough. Various appointees of Arroyo committed all these. The graft and ineptness occurred under a President whose sole concern is to survive her questioned term.

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My piece last week, “Are we safe from our own police?”, elicited reactions from a number of expatriates. Here are two of them.

Joe P., an American retiree in Pampanga: “Thank you for exposing criminal cops. The only way to defeat them is to alert the public. Check out an eye-opening website www.centralluzoncorruption.com. In my opinion, majority of policemen are honest. But we in Angeles City’s 5,000-strong expat community live with underage extortion setups by crooked cops. Sometimes victims are tourists, who must pay bribes upwards of P200,000 or else land in jail and miss flights home. Men look for female companionship, not pedophilia. Companions of unsuspecting newcomers would let a ‘friend’, who is under 18, into the hotel room on some pretext. Whereupon a squad of ‘rescuing cops’ arrives with the child’s parents, and demands payoffs. There is no police blotter, no case, no receipt for the money. It has been a thriving racket ever since, ironically, Congress passed new laws to protect women and minors.”

Lee M.: “My answer to your question is, for the most part, no. I was recently scammed on an immigration I-Card and some other documents. After explaining to airport immigration men that my wife had used a legit law firm near their headquarters downtown for my papers, they still confiscated my I-Card. Then they left us to deal with the trouble ourselves. They did not bother to call the police to file a complaint or at least find out what was going on within their system that they are supposed to protect. We sought advice elsewhere, were told to file a complaint with the police, but also warned that they’ll ask us for money to investigate. Everyone we talked to said the same thing. The immigration men still have the Philippine passports of my wife and stepdaughters, who were told that they’re watching for us to show up at their headquarters. I depart in a week and don’t know if I should ever return.”

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“Fear breaks you down; courage makes you whole. The worm of fear gnaws more of you than the toll of courage will demand. The act of faith is less costly than the state of anxiety that comes from lack of it.” Shafts of Light, Fr. Guido Arguelles, SJ

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