The fat man in Ethiopia

The road user’s tax was meant to provide funds for the repair of major public roads and related infrastructure. The government started collecting it in 2001, from all vehicle owners. We’re talking a whopping P56.5 billion in taxes, from 2001 to 2009. A road board was put up to oversee the disbursement of the revenue.

But now, it seems that the board itself is under scrutiny. With the aftermath of Ondoy, people were wondering if the said tax did anything to improve the city’s drainage system, which was overwhelmed by the deluge that Ondoy unleashed.

It seemed logical for the Commission on Audit to start an investigation, and true enough, a lot of anomalies concerning the roads users tax were discovered!

To top it all up, the executive director of the Road Board from 2005 to the first half of 2008 happened to be a brother of DILG Sec. Ronaldo Puno. Enter Sen. Miriam Santiago.

We all know that there is no love lost between the feisty Senator and the DILG Secretary, whom the former accuses of orchestrating massive fraud in the 1992 presidential elections where Santiago was a candidate. So getting the Senator to initiate an investigation into the “biggest scandal of the decade” was inevitable, if not expected. It was also helped in part by the very trait that many Filipinos have which I call the “fat man in Ethiopia” effect.

Dodi Puno, the brother of DILG Sec. Ronaldo Puno, apparently owns two luxury yachts, several expensive cars, several posh condominiums, and has a taste for lavish parties and a penchant for wooing movie actresses and beauty queens.

Of course, the next question would be, what does he do for a living? And the answer that he used to be the executive director of the Road Board, that currently cannot explain where the almost 60 billion pesos went does not exactly help his cause.

How can you own all of these luxurious items while working in government, and not expect people to ask questions? How can a fat man in Ethiopia go unnoticed?

Unexplained wealth is something that is so brazen in this country, yet it seems so hard for the government to spot and prosecute these criminals! All they have to do is look around.

There seems to be no fear of investigation by the government of the people in government who flaunt their wealth for everyone to see! Until of course, they become the subject of media, print or tv. Only then are their unexplained luxuries brought to attention.

Government efficiency via public outrage. Typical of practically anything in the Philippines!