EDITORIAL - Pursuing crooks

The country has several laws expressly prohibiting private companies from doing business with government agencies where the companies’ officials have relatives.

We have Republic Act 3019, the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, passed way back in 1960. After the large-scale corruption during the martial law regime, policy makers found it necessary to pass in 1989 RA 6713, the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees, which prohibits such transactions within the fourth civil degree of consanguinity or affinity, “including bilas, inso and balae.”

Penalties under RA 6713, however, are relatively light – imprisonment of up to five years and a fine of up to P5,000 plus disqualification from public office – although other laws with heavier penalties may be applied depending on the offense.

To give more teeth to the anti-graft campaign, the Anti-Plunder law, RA 7080 was passed in July 1991, defining the offense as corruption involving at least P75 million, and with heavier penalties. This was further amended in December 1993 through RA 7659, the Death Penalty Law, which defined plunder as a capital offense and lowered the threshold for prosecution to amounts involving at least P50 million.

With the abolition of the death penalty, plunder still warrants life in prison.

If the detailed provisions of all these laws were strictly and efficiently applied, the nation wouldn’t be talking about the need for yet another law to prohibit private contractors from doing business with agencies where they have relatives up to the fourth civil degree.

The proposal was made amid public indignation over massive flooding from recent monsoon-induced rains and tropical cyclones. Anti-graft advocates have long pointed to flood control projects as a favorite source of kickbacks, because of the difficulty of monitoring their implementation. The advocates have lamented that politicians who earmark the projects for implementation no longer even bother to conceal their families’ links to the contractors.

President Marcos, who had trumpeted in his State of the Nation Address last year that 5,500 flood control projects had been completed across the country, joined in the condemnation. In his fourth SONA last Monday, he ordered a probe into flood control projects that are “palpak” and “guni-guni” – defective or mere figments of the imagination.

A list of all flood control projects in the past three years, which will be subjected to audit, is being drawn up on orders of the President.

While the order for an audit is welcome, the question is whether the nation will see accountability. How far is the President willing to take this initiative? Is he prepared to punish his allies? He must make sure that this push for clean government will live up to its promise.