Public works officials should resign

The admonition "mahiya naman kayo" should primarily be addressed to the officials in the DPWH and COA and other related agencies which have control, supervision, coordination, and oversight functions over the flood control projects and other public works. "Mahiya naman kayo" should shame the scoundrels, rascals, and scalawags in flood control and other government projects.

If the president is dead serious in his fight against corruption in government, he should not only focus on contractors, who are only pawns being used by the most corrupt predators among crocodiles and alligators. The elephants in the rooms are the congressmen and perhaps the senators too who inserted the pork barrel during the small committee secret meetings, and the DPWH officials who are alleged to be the true kingpins and brains of public corruption.

If the DPWH secretary had a little delicadeza, he should have tendered his resignation after the SONA, and if not, after the president's field inspection in Bulacan. They could not hold a candle to the clean record of former secretary Bebs Singson, who was the cleanest DPWH top honcho. PBBM himself had to do the actual on-site inspections when the top echelons of the DPWH leadership, from the secretaries, the coterie of undersecretaries and assistant secretaries, bureau directors, and regional directors, could have spared the head of state from performing mundane tasks of inspections, which they are mandated to perform.

The president himself discovered a ghost flood control in Bulacan. Right then and there, the responsible DPWH officials should have offered their immediate and irrevocable resignation. They are well-paid, they are well-supported with multi-billion public funds and a large bureaucracy of many personnel, subalterns, and underlings. They have all the equipment, machineries, tools, gadgets and materials, supplies and logistics. Why should it be the president to discover the shenanigans in their own backyards?

The contractors are the sacrificial lambs and the scapegoats. But they also ate the forbidden fruits of the poisonous trees. The government is a huge jungle of graft and corruption. The Philippines is not a poor country. We are a very rich country which is ASEAN's fastest-growing economy. The gross domestic product is rising and the inflation rate has plateaued. And yet, the government keeps borrowing money just to fund pork barrels to be stolen by corrupt officials.

The national debt stands at ?16.75 trillion to be paid by the future generations of Filipinos, including those who have not yet been born. Then the budget for 2026 is ?6.793 trillion. The projected revenues are way below the projected expenses. And yet a large slice of the budget shall most probably go to the pockets of corrupt politicians, in connivance with unscrupulous contractors abetted by greedy bureaucrats. The taxpayers are overtaxed, underserved, and have no voice in a system of taxation without genuine representation.

If the president is serious in his call for "mahiya naman kayo", he should fire all responsible DPWH officials starting from the secretary himself and his undersecretaries. These anomalies are bound to continue and will just lie low for a while, then go back to business as usual. BBM has mentioned in his SONA the kickbacks, the "for the boys", the SOPs, and all forms of corruption. He should follow this up with cleansing, with mass dismissals, with reshuffles at the very least, and not with just words without action.

The ombudsman should follow up the words of the president by coordinating with the NBI and the PNP and other law-enforcing agencies, by conducting surveillance operations against officials who are involved in public biddings, procurement, contract negotiation and execution, project supervision and inspection, post-audit and other functions in relation to contractors and suppliers of materials and services to the government. There should be massive and intensive lifestyle checks on public officials and contractors.

Heads must roll. Officials must be investigated for corruption or gross inexcusable negligence and reshuffled, and if found guilty fired and perpetually barred from holding public office. Those found guilty should be imprisoned for life and shamed by the whole nation.