THE Independent Commission for Infrastructure or ICI, formed to investigate alleged irregularities in flood control projects, is now being stoked up before what may be a Byzantine drive to resolve the people’s unease.
Millions, impacted by the impudent greed of contractors, some government officials and appearingly even legislators who ostensibly wanted a share of the legally prohibited pie, are nervously anticipating how the ICI will shift its gears and what direction it will take.
The separate Congressional public hearings, with contractors, Public Works and Highways officials, and even some from the Commission on Audit, have painted a bulletin board which showed rewarding financial initiatives that resulted in ghost flood control projects, a euphemism for incomplete or not started projects but which have been fully paid.
And, thanks to the three successive typhoons – obviously no thanks from the point of view of those now in the public eye – President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. quickly discovered, to his aroused disgust, that there were ghosts even before the Halloween in October.
Thousands of Filipinos, the old and the young including women and children north and south of Metro Manila and even in the capital region itself, continue to footslog in knee-deep or even higher floodwaters which should have been checked by projects as far back as years can be counted.
Which means, for that long this unsuspecting nation of 117 million had been callously wounded by the insatiable greed and double-dealing of contractors and their accomplices who facilitated the release of funds which otherwise could have helped Filipino families elevate their household economy, the education of their offspring, their security, among others.
We do not raise questions anymore when people – students, their mentors and other sectors of a beaten black-and-blue society – participate in a gaining momentum movement of street protests.
Like the 68-year-old President Marcos, we do not censure people for participating in these protests, which mirror the suppressed exasperation of a lacerated citizenry, a nation wounded by rapacity, duplicity and corruption.
Great faith and trust have reared their troubled heads when the President said of the protesters: “I don’t blame them. Not one bit.”
And he flashed a refreshing down-time – but his countrymen are keenly observing his body English and crafted paragraphs – when he reaffirmed a guarantee that friends and allies “would not be spared.”
Like those tossing nearly helplessly in rising floodwaters, we hold the hope the ICI will be able to address the recognized concerns of a people whacked by adversity and incorrigibly corrupt mortals with money-grubbing schemes.
