“Kung walang korap, walang mahirap (If no corrupt, no poor)” won Noynoy Aquino the Presidency in 2010. Five years on, it has lost luster. “Unfulfilled promise,” says one in two Filipinos (46 percent) polled last quarter by the Catholic Church. Hard proof stares them in the face:
• The jobless swelled to 4.3 million and underemployed to 6.9 million in 2014.
• Poverty stays at 27 percent, the same rate since 1986, but worse in real numbers due to population growth.
• Hunger dipped to its lowest level in ten years, but still afflicts three million families, 15 percent of total.
P-Noy won’t say it in his last State of the Nation today. But people are poorer because corruption festers. Credit that to bad economics of P-Noy’s most trusted Budget Sec. Florencio Abad. His idea of dispersing wealth is by congressional and presidential pork barrels. Developmental funds only end up in the pockets of lawmakers, agency heads, and ruling Liberal Party mates.
Foremost pork beneficiary is Abad’s own wife, the congresswoman of the smallest province, Batanes. Although a congressman was entitled to only P70 million pork a year, the wife got P860 million in three years, 2010-2013. Their alibi was to play catch-up, as the previous admin had given them no pork since they were then Opposition. The slanted feeling of pork entitlement notwithstanding, the grant could have made 860 new millionaires in Batanes who would start businesses and hire locals. None of that. What’s sure, there’s an Abad daughter and son in government employ, plus at least five cousins, nephews, and nieces.
Abad vainly sanitizes it by getting Opposition leaders indicted for plundering P10 billion in pork. Yet P-Noy allies are spared, so fostering more corruption. The Supreme Court consequently outlawed the racket. Still, P424 billion in similar discretionary lump sums are inserted in the 2015 budgets of 11 of 21 line agencies alone, anti-pork ex-senator Panfilo Lacson laments.
LP-mate Proceso Alcala, P-Noy’s agriculture chief, is a burden to farmers and consumers. His 2013 flop to make the country self-sufficient in rice was bad enough. He worsened it by letting appointees overprice rice imports by P2.4 billion in 2013 and 2014. In June of those years, rice retail prices surged right after the dry-season harvests. Onion, garlic, and ginger prices soared too, as Alcala’s aides colluded with smuggling cartelists. He has simply moved them to other posts, thus, like Abad, encouraging more sleaze.
The Ombudsman is taking too long to resolve plunder raps arising from the overpriced rice imports. Meanwhile, investigators have cleared Alcala et al on flimsy grounds in the separate P1.08-billion overpriced cargo handling of the 2014 rice import. Supposedly, they did no wrong in contracting the sole applicant for cargo handling, when they in fact tailor-fit the rules for that favored shipping firm. Allegedly too, the aggrieved party’s reluctance to help the probe weakened it.
Alcala knows he still has P-Noy believing in his feigned problem solving. So he’s badmouthing ex-senator Francis Pangilinan and staff to whom P-Noy entrusted the four biggest agriculture agencies concerned with rice, coconut, fertilizers, and irrigation.
LP acting president Joseph Abaya is the foremost scarer of good investors and enticer of bad ones. His foul-ups as transport secretary are notorious. Under him was contracted a blacklisted Filipino firm and an undercapitalized foreign partner to fabricate vehicle license plates for an anomalous P3.8 billion. Supposedly world-class, the metal crumples in floods and corrodes in the rains. State auditors have declared the deal illegal. But Abaya’s spokesman defiantly proclaims they will not stop it, unless specifically so ordered.
Abaya’s other minions are as impudent. His Manila International Airport chief is too sick to work, yet refuses to turn over the post for good. His Maritime Industry managers and Coast Guards blame each other and the ship owner in a recent fatal capsizing. Yet both were at fault respectively for licensing the ill-trained crew and clearing the top-heavy mis-loading.
P-Noy’s tenure will be remembered not only by the Mamasapano Massacre of 44 policemen by his Moro separatist truce-mates. Sleaze also will forever stain other agencies. There are the overpriced police patrol jeeps and faulty fire trucks of the interior department. Too, the dilapidated 55-year-old combat-utility helicopters of the defense department under the Armed Forces modernization. Pollutive are the environment department’s permits to mine in forbidden hillsides, and even to import toxic garbage.
What most aptly represents the P-Noy admin is the MRT-3 (Metro Rail Transit) mess. Abaya and two subs gave a two-month-old firm P517.5 million to maintain Metro Manila’s main commuter rail for ten months. It broke down countless times and suffered serious accidents as a consequence. There was clear graft, for the contractors were Abaya’s LP mates. Yet to the dismay of commuters, the Ombudsman cleared him of criminal liability. Meanwhile, Abaya’s old high school chum, now head of the LRT-1 and -2, threw a P2.5-million anniversary costume party. All that, while train riders had to bear leaking roofs during the rains and weak air-conditioning on hot days.
To get even, the Filipino thinking class is getting even with P-Noy and gang via the social media. A recent parody takes off from his 2013 promise – “magpapasagasa kami sa tren (let the train run over us)” – if he fails to make the railways better by 2015. No wonder it’s now viral: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIRB61FIZ8Q.
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