Riding the tiger

Deluged with multibillion-peso flood control anomalies, the Marcos administration promptly sacks... oops, not the public works secretary, but the chief of the Philippine National Police.

Was it for graft or incompetence? Perhaps details will emerge in the coming days. But at this point, what it looks like from the peanut gallery is that it was mainly due to the ousted police chief outshining his boss the interior secretary, who finds an epal opportunity even in announcing class suspensions due to bad weather.

Aren’t there other officials more deserving of getting unceremoniously axed? Maybe it’s early days yet. But with the PNP controversy taking place at the height of the flood control scandal, people are asking if the administration doesn’t have more pressing priorities than a pissing contest among security officials.

How serious is the anti-corruption campaign? Because the initiator is the only son of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos, the campaign is hobbled by public skepticism from the outset. It is also premised on the idea that the shameless can be shamed.

Still, people are willing to overlook the incongruity of the situation and see how far President Marcos can take his “mahiya naman kayo” campaign.

On Wednesday, BBM ordered lifestyle checks on all government officials. Obviously, the announcement needs finessing. There are millions of people on the public payroll, many of them occupying mid- or high-level positions. He can’t possibly subject the entire bureaucracy to lifestyle checks.

Those hoping for the order to cover Congress and the judiciary will likely just have to dream on, unless the members of these branches of government volunteer to subject themselves to the checks.

Will it cover governors, mayors, barangay captains and other local government officials? Are Vice President Sara Duterte and her brother the acting mayor included?  At this point, even Malacañang still seems to be weighing the answers.

VP Sara dismissed the anti-graft crackdown as a mere zarzuela and said the lifestyle check must be a “deep dive” or thorough, to include suspected asset dummies. Perhaps she can name some of these dummies.

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A lifestyle check can be a good step, if it can be carried out properly. And if the judiciary won’t get in the way. The courts could soon be deluged with petitions for restraining orders, and judges beholden to political patrons could oblige the petitioners.

One way to show that the anti-corruption campaign is not just for show is to complement the lifestyle checks with an order to release government officials’ annual statements of assets, liabilities and net worth.

SALNs used to be routinely accessed by the media during submission time. But Samuel Martires, as vanguard of opaqueness in the Office of the Ombudsman, ordered all SALNs to be kept under lock and key. All three branches of government happily complied.

Nothing in the ombudsman’s order, however, prevented public officials from voluntarily making public their SALNs. As far as I can remember, only Leni Robredo did this throughout her term as vice president.

There are key administration officials who are strongly against the release of SALNs. And the declaration of assets can be complicated for BBM and his relatives who are in government, considering all the legal challenges involving their wealth (cases now being rapidly dismissed by the courts, one after the other).

Still, the truthfulness of official asset declarations can be defended by topnotch accountants. It would be a dramatic gesture of sincerity in his campaign if BBM would lead by example in releasing his SALN.

The nation will be watching how his Cabinet members will carry out the lifestyle checks in their respective offices.

Secretary Manuel Bonoan has expressed readiness to subject himself to a lifestyle check, to kick off the drive in the Department of Public Works and Highways. Even if he passes the scrutiny, however, a person or entity outside the DPWH must lead the lifestyle checks in the department, which is at the heart of the flood control mess.

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Alongside the order for lifestyle checks, the government, led by the Department of Budget and Management, rolled out last Wednesday the Digital Information for Monitoring and Evaluation project.

DIME allows the public to monitor data on flood control and other state-funded infrastructure projects. Feedback can be posted online. The data is gathered using satellites, drones and geotagging.

Just to manage expectations, Project DIME was initiated way back in 2018. It was revived in 2023 under Executive Order 31, which aimed to institutionalize the Philippine Open Government Partnership to promote transparency and accountability.

The DPWH in fact joined DIME way back in May this year, through a memorandum of understanding between the two departments.

And yet here we are, astounded (OK, not too much) by the breadth of corruption in flood control projects alone. We haven’t even touched yet multilayered corruption in road and bridge projects.

Lawmakers are reportedly asking how far the President wants to take his campaign. But it looks like he himself doesn’t have a clear answer to this, and is simply allowing the chips to fall where they may. Bato-bato sa langit, ang tamaan huwag magagalit.

BBM must be prepared to ride the tiger.