EDITORIAL - Justice for the small fry

A former public school principal may spend up to 11 years in prison. Her crime? Pocketing P5,000 that was provided as financial assistance to the Taytay Elementary School in Virac, Catanduanes by the Office of the Vice Governor in the province. The money was used for the purchase of cement.

In 2023, Anchelita Sicio was convicted of falsification of public documents and malversation by the Virac Regional Trial Court Branch 42. Court records showed that in 2012, she faked a sales invoice for the purchase of 28 bags of cement costing P7,000 for the school when only eight bags were actually purchased for P2,000.

Sicio’s conviction was elevated to the Sandiganbayan, which rejected her appeal on Feb. 12.

In a country where graft has become endemic, it’s good to see government workers being penalized for misusing public funds. But it would be even better if the big fish involved in large-scale corruption could also be brought to justice. Those who steal billions or systematically plunder public coffers, however, often don’t even spend a single moment behind bars. Even when convicted, they are immediately pardoned, and are even allowed to return to public office.

A week ago, a former official of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources office in what is now the Bangsamoro region was also sentenced to a maximum combined prison term of 112 years for the anomalous procurement of P3.76 million in office supplies in 2010.

Meanwhile, anti-graft crusaders have pointed out that multimillion-peso kickbacks for public works projects have become the kalakaran or norm. Worse, the crusaders lament that politicians not only earmark the projects for public funding and choose the contractors, but now also own the companies that carry out the projects including those for flood control and road works.

Such projects cost billions – public funds that are lost annually to corruption. The P5,000 pocketed by Sicio is not even enough to buy a week’s worth of gasoline for the thieves in high office and their convoys of security escorts. But the big fish are never caught.

In this country, tragically, there are two types of justice: one for ordinary people who are mostly penny-ante offenders like Anchelita Sicio, and another for the plunderers who occupy high public office.