EDITORIAL – Punishment for the small fry

For disbursing P80,000 for ghost repairs of a basketball court and barangay hall, three former village officials of Naga City in Cebu face up to 20 years in prison following their conviction for graft by the Sandiganbayan.

The anti-graft court upheld the ruling of the Cebu City Regional Trial Court Branch 5, which found that former Barangay Bairan councilors Reynaldo Espinosa and Bernardino Cania conspired with village treasurer Felix Lacara in the illegal disbursement of the funds. Their former barangay captain, Rufino Sabanal, died so the charges against him were dropped.

Court records show that the P80,000 was paid out through two checks for P30,000 and P50,000 in June and July 2010, respectively, supposedly for the purchase of construction materials for the repairs, which auditors established were never carried out.

This is how long it takes for the wheels of justice to turn in this country, for a case involving the misuse of just P80,000 in public funds, and with the defendants little known.

Imagine what the battle will be like, and how long litigation could take, as the nation pursues the enormously wealthy and those in high public office who stand accused of pocketing billions meant for flood control projects. Estimates of their alleged total loot now run into trillions.

With their enormous resources, these people can resort to endless delaying tactics in their prosecution, and then invoke “inordinate delay” to seek the dismissal of the case. They can find loopholes in the law to get charges dismissed on technicalities. Or else they can simply pay off the judge with sums large enough to ensure a comfortable retirement; politicians have no monopoly of corruption.

At least it’s good to see former government officials being convicted and punished for pocketing public money. Barangay offices, which are authorized to raise their own funds, must be subjected to thorough auditing. The funds they raise – from parking fees, bridge tolls and business clearances, for example – are public funds that are not supposed to go to their own pockets. How widespread in the barangay system is the offense committed by those officials of Barangay Cairan?

The nation also wants to see equally heavy if not tougher penalties for higher ranking public officials who have stolen amounts a million times greater than the P80,000 that the four defendants were accused of stealing.

Ongoing probes on the billions stolen in flood control projects alone provide opportunities for disproving the widespread perception that there are two types of justice in this country: one for those low in the social pecking order, and another for moneyed and influential VIPs.