Suggestion from a retired general Mga Cavaliers at mga kababayan,

Considering the very huge amount of the “Kaban ng Bayan” or our national budget being stolen by big time syndicates and powerful people in our country, we suggest that a Commission be organized dedicated to solve this tremendous problem of corruption facing our country.

The organized Commission will do the following:

1) It will investigate and follow through the cases up to its conclusion and people found guilty after going through the proper court of justice will be imprisoned and the money they have stolen or its equivalent will be recovered or retrieved.

2) Put up a jail similar to Alcatraz to be located in one of our islands to be named the “Island of the Corrupt.” This jail is for all found guilty of corruption.

3) The Commission will just be given a start-up budget and then the succeeding budgets will be taken from the money they will recover from the corruptors.

Practically, this Commission will be self-supporting, a challenge for all who will be appointed to this Commission.

4) The composition of the Commission will be coming from patriotic men and women and selected members of the military and uniformed personnel (MUP).

5) Whistleblowers’ reward will be five percent of the recovered stolen money.

6) Finally, the Commission will manage the Jail of the Corrupt and be responsible for the recovery of the stolen money from the corruptors.

God bless us and our Beloved Philippines. – Gen. Manuel B. Mariano (Ret.), Philippine Military Academy Class ’62

Will this time be different?

Everyone’s getting excited about the lifestyle check that the President has ordered following the scandalous exposés on crooks masquerading as contractors and their equally nefarious cohorts in government – in the DPWH and in Congress, and perhaps other agencies as well.

The scandal du jour is flood control projects, faulty or non-existent, which caused huge swaths of the country, especially in Metro Manila, to be under water after torrential rains brought by tropical depressions and the monsoon.

This latest scandal has sidelined the earlier scandal involving a Supreme Court decision that put a stop to the trial to look into billions in confidential funds given to fraudulent people hiding behind cutesy names of snack foods.

And before that there was the mangling of our national budget (that’s a major one), the laptop scandal, the onions scandal, the sugar scandal, the Pharmally scandal and numerous illegal drug smuggling scandals, not to mention other more “minor” smuggling scandals involving fish and vegetables and whatnot.

What happened to all of those, after the chest thumping and grandstanding and calls of “heads will roll” and investigations galore? Will this time be any different? Will the lifestyle checks really uncover significant illegal wealth, beyond the basement garage with a Rolls Royce Cullinan and its umbrellas and 39 other luxury vehicles?

I desperately want to be proven wrong, but honestly, I’m not holding my breath that this time, it will be different – that corruption of such magnitude will really be exposed and those corruptors charged, tried, convicted and punished, stripped of their obnoxious wealth and sent to rot in jail. Please, prove me wrong. – Catalina Bernales, Novaliches, Quezon City