“All PBBM has to do is use his line item veto power to remove all unprogrammed funds in the General Appropriation Act”
AS A result of the ongoing flood control scandal, PBBM reallocated a huge portion of the 2026 national budget intended for infrastructure projects to social oriented programs which is a mistake.
The intention is undoubtedly to prevent more government funds going to waste but PBBM’s decision will further set the country behind its neighbors on infrastructure development.
On the contrary, now is actually the right time to push ahead with all the infra projects including flood control with the appointment of the new wonder boy in the Cabinet Vince Dizon to the DPWH.
With all that is going on, no politician, DPWH official or contractor would dare monkey around with the project funds.
And since PBBM has complete trust and confidence in Vince Dizon, he can be sure all projects started will be completed according to standards.
Stopping all flood control projects especially in the NCR where the problem is clearly worsening, is not advisable.
Transferring the funds to other departments is not going to stop corruption either as PBBM must know because the problem of corruption runs in the entire gamut of the national bureaucracy.
Wasn’t he once quoted as saying that completely eradicating corruption in government is an almost impossible task because to achieve that, kailangang walang matitirang opisyal sa gobyerno?
The thing to aspire for which is doable is to try to bring corruption down to the barest minimum so that the government can function with a little sense of respectability and credibility.
It used to be that corruption was not the way it currently is but the past several years saw the magnitude go off the roof.
PBBM on his own can actually do something to significantly reduce corruption immediately.
All he has to do is use his line item veto power to remove all unprogrammed funds in the General Appropriation Act and insist that only specified and identified projects are included.
He can also insist that the entire budgeting process down to the signing of the GAA into law be open to the public and be wholly transparent.
This is to make sure that lawmakers who attempt to insert or park funds are fully identified.
This should include making all biddings in any government transaction transparent and genuine and not the way it is currently being done which are simply sham proceedings.
This will not totally eradicate corruption but the level should go down significantly and enough to be able to restore some confidence in the process.
At the moment, the country has lost a lot of prestige and credibility.
The current investigations has also opened up the old complaints from foreign investors, causing the country to lag behind in foreign direct investments.
In fact, our stock market has already taken a beating the past several days together with our currency in relation to the US dollar.
The Asian Development Bank is now warning of the possible negative impact of the investigations to our economic growth rate this year and next.
This should be enough incentive to fast-track all investigations and refer their recommendations to the Office of the Ombudsman and let that office take things from there before this scandal will do lasting damage to the country’s standing in the international community.
Besides, why do we need four investigative bodies to investigate the same thing?
Congress as we know is doing it in aid to legislation but we know that they already know the drill and what to do.
Anyway, any new law will almost certainly not stop corruption.
Remember when the Supreme Court declared PDAF to be unconstitutional which was supposed to stop congressional corruption?
Members of Congress simply became more creative and developed a new process of acquiring government funds.
This time in the billions not hundreds of millions like before.
For Congress, the solution is simple. There should no longer be any Pork Barrel Funds but will the lawmakers have the political will to do it?
DOJ should also stop and just refer what it has gathered to the Office of the Ombudsman.
Since this is a criminal investigation, the ICI should be enough and we have no choice but to trust the body to do its job.
But if even the ICI will fail, then we are indeed hopeless.
