BBM to grafters: "Shame On You"

The climax of the president's fourth SONA, and the one I liked most, although I really do not believe its sincerity, was when President BBM called out all grafters in government and their cohorts, who are contractors and suppliers. "Mahiya Naman kayo." Shame on You. I suspect they were in the audience.

It is common knowledge that many or most of our congressmen have their own pork barrel allocations and they have their own "suki" contractors and suppliers, if not owned by them through proxies and shadow owners under their control and domination. Why are our roads and bridges easily destroyed by the slightest touch of flood and even the mildest earthquakes? They have been built not in strict compliance with the quality specifications as to materials and scope of work. Most of the budgets for public works goes to the pockets of the trapos and the contractors.

We know what happens to many public biddings that are being rigged. There are ghost public bidders and there are bidders who just enter the bidding to lose because they have been paid by the bidders who were agreed on to win. We know how the members of the bidding committees are being bribed with money, women and jewelries, foreign travels and even real estate, mansions and condos, cars and other luxuries. We were not born yesterday. We know what is going on.

We know the PDAP and all the Napoles-linked shenanigans and anomalies, how many senators, congressmen were prosecuted, and exonerated, how many billions were lost and are unaccounted for. They have renamed the PDAP and rebranded the corruption vehicles in multiple different names and styles. But it is the same old story, the fight for contracts and for money. Stealing public funds by any name smells as obnoxious and deplorable. “Mahiya naman kayo,” is a voice in the wilderness that sounds ironic and funny, especially coming from the President.

We know that even provincial governors and city mayors as well as municipal mayors have their own grafts and corrupt practices acts. Even provincial board members and councilors, and truth is to be told in all its naked notoriety, even barangay captains and kagawads have their shares of corruption. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Whenever you entrust authority without enforced accountability, there is a safe space for corruption and most public officials tend to take advantage while there is opportunity.

If the president is really sincere beyond mere rhetoric, he should go ahead with auditing all public works, including the flood control projects allocated with billions of public funds. He should order independent auditors, not necessarily the COA, to go into the records of all LGUs from Aparri to TawiTawi from three years backward to the present. All contractors and suppliers should be scrutinized and their relationships and special arrangements with the congressmen, governors, mayors and other officials.

The documents should be zealously examined and the terms and conditions of contracts and purchase orders should be analyzed. There should be a very detailed and painstaking scrutiny of all the intrinsic and extrinsic factors surrounding all contracts, all purchase orders, all delivery receipts and all receipts of payments. The renewed hopes that were generated by the president's fourth SONA would just be wasted if there are no honest-to-goodness follow-up actions. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The proof of the president's sincerity is the number of officials indicted, prosecuted and put to prison.

And so, to all those who are guilty of graft and corrupt practices out there. You should be alarmed by now. Sooner or later, a summon from the prosecutors or the Ombudsman is forthcoming. If you are guilty, and you know that, by heart, you have strong reasons to be concerned, in fact, deeply concerned. If you are innocent, you have no cause for worry. But sometimes, even the innocent, by their negligence can cause damage to the government and to public service, and therefore to the people.

And so, to the grafters, out there, “Mahiya Naman Kayo.” If you still have a working conscience, shame on you if you persist in your corrupt practices.