“These investigations must not be allowed to take too long to conclude”
THE PDAF congressional investigations of a decade ago was supposed to be the mother of all investigations that would put an end to government corruption with Janet Napoles sent to jail.
Instead, government officials responsible in crafting the national budget simply became more creative in developing a new system of how to steal government funds.
Over the past several years, we have become familiar with new terms in the national budgeting process like funds being parked like cars, insertions and unprogrammed funds.
These funds took the place of the Priority Development Assistance Funds in addition to the budgeted funds intended for flood control mitigation programs.
As the current investigations are showing, PDAF funds were very small compared to what has been allegedly stolen from the money intended for flood control mitigation projects.
Last Sept. 21, on the anniversary of the declaration of Martial Law, the public took to the streets to show their revulsion to the magnitude of corruption.
It must have been that video showing the piles of money all in 1,000-peso bills on top of those tables that finally broke the camel’s back, so to speak.
Whether in fact the current investigations will succeed in sending high government officials to jail for corruption is something the public must be vigilant in monitoring to prevent the old boy network from protecting their own kind.
This is because almost everyone is somehow tainted with the corruption disease.
But there are reasons to be hopeful this time around. Unlike in the PDAF investigations, the public has now become wiser.
In those PDAF investigations, they were made to believe Janet Napoles was the sole mastermind.
But as the public now realize, there were others who were as guilty but managed to stay free because the direction of the inquiry made it appear that she was the only mastermind and the public swallowed it hook line and sinker.
Now, the public wants the scalps of all government officials involved in the scandal regardless of whether they are from the executive or legislative branch.
Sorting out who are the angels and who are the demons in this sordid scandal, however, will be tricky.
Those in the public who are familiar with how government funds are liquidated understand that almost if not all of those in the line of the liquidation process have varying degrees of involvement.
The investigators will therefore have to identify the guiltiest down to the least guilty and then determine the best person or persons to accept as state witnesses.
But since there are so many investigations going on at the same time, it is difficult at the moment to make any heads or tails where the direction of the investigation is going.
As shown by the Senate hearing last Tuesday, there seems to be no delineation of scope, functions and responsibilities among the four investigative bodies looking into the flood control corruption scandal.
What happensm for instance, if the House and Senate separately clears someone but the DOJ and the ICI charge the person in court or vice versa?
What will also happen if each of the four investigating bodies have identified different masterminds because it could indeed happen that there could be another with the same degree of guilt?
One investigating body might identify the District Engineer as the mastermind but another believes it is the politician where the fund came from .
Medyo magulo but at least the investigation going on is not only limited to the contractors but includes politicians. Let’s see whether this will be resolved.
From what the resource speakers and the members of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee were saying last Tuesday, the answers can be found by following the trail from those parked, inserted and unprogrammed funds.
That is where the big fish can be caught.
But these investigations must not be allowed to take too long to conclude.
The four investigative bodies especially the two houses of Congress already know the drill and what needs to be done.
They should just go ahead and do it.
Prolonging the agony will not be good for our country’s reputation as we already lost a lot of prestige as a result of the scandal.
Finish it so the country can move on.
