Government should recover ?250 billion

The level of anger and indignation of the Filipino people against the corrupt politicians, contractors, and the government, has waned very little even with the less-shocking revelations coming out from the Independent Committee on Infrastructure (ICI) and the Department of Justice (DOJ). The concerned citizens demanded the “live streaming” of the ICI investigations, that the ICI and DOJ are now conducting twice-weekly press briefings and will partially livestream the proceedings. The invitations and attendance of the accused congressmen and senators, including the former Senate president and House speaker, were closely followed in the main and social media by majority of Filipinos. The 65% of the Filipino people who are mainly middle class, the students, the religious and the civil society can and will sustain their protests and social actions for justice, atonement, and recovery of the stolen dignity and money.

The Catholic Church already issued the “oratio imperata” to be read in the daily Masses, and asked the faithful to wear white every Sunday Mass as a sign of protest against corruption. While most politicians are hoping the anger and protests will die down, there are/will be still enough fire in the 65% of the Filipinos, to create problems for the politicians and the BBM government if there are no convictions and restitutions in the next few months.

Last week, Sen. Lacson was quoted saying that based on the evidence gathered so far, ?25 billion in cash and assets can be recovered from those already investigated/charged, with a “plea bargain” deal, for them to surrender cash/assets in exchange for lesser penalties and prison time. Obviously, these didn’t include the senators, congressmen and other higher government officials not yet investigated/charged, so this amount is really too low, especially since he also averred the total amount lost in these corrupt laden DPWH contracts/projects, may have reached ?1 trillion over the 10-year period.

The DPWH budget in 2025 is ?1.007 trillion out of the total Philippine government budget of ?6.3 trillion. ?254.3 billion was allocated for flood management, and ?221.5 billion is for convergence and support program, and the rest for other DPWH programs. ?162 billion for the unappropriated net insertions after BBM vetoed ?26 billion. Given these amounts, we can assume that the average DPWH budget in the last seven years was ?700 billion, or total of ?4.9 trillion. Assuming further that 20% of the DPWH budget was stolen through corrupt transactions, the government lost ?980 billion, almost the same amount as Lacson’s estimate.

Now, we can understand why the corrupt contractors, DPWH officials, congressmen, and senators live in such luxury. As it is very difficult to recover all these amounts due to the structure and practices of our political, legislative, and judicial system, we should at least recover one-fourth of the amount, which would be ?250 billion. These might be the realistic amount recoverable that will appease the Filipino people and prevent them from doing worse protests and demonstrations.

The Philippine government’s 2025 budget deficit, (amount to be borrowed) is projected at ?1.5 trillion, so a ?250-billion recovery would cover at least two months of the budget deficit. Or it could be used to build more school buildings, funds for additional healthcare services, and/or increase teachers’ salaries. ?250 billion is also about 1% of the Philippines annual GDP, that it would probably add 1.5% to the annual GDP growth of the economy, if it is spent for productive projects/programs of the government. These would positively impact on the poverty level and improve wealth distribution.

It’s imperative for the BBM administration to use the ICI, DOJ, BIR, SEC, AMLA, and all the capability and capacity of the government to recover at least ?250 billion for the Filipino people. So help us, God.