It’s more than a month since the Independent Commission for Infrastructure was created to investigate irregularities in flood control projects and all national goveranment infrastructure works throughout the year.
The people, recurrently threatened by deadly rains and floodwaters, remain infuriated over what they perceive as the rather sluggish turn of the wheel in the justice mechanism.
Investigations left and right, endless press bulletins and unceasing shared platform content that border on fake news, among others, have been witnessed by people who feel they have been cheated by the notoriously corrupt.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. created the ICI, soon after it was clear many levels in government, including and not limited to the House of Representatives and the Senate, have been blighted by corruption.
Understandably, the people exhaled noisily, persuaded they would, as they had demanded far too long, have a whiff of transparency and accountability in the ICI hearings, following the cessation of committee hearings in both houses of Congress.
Many wanted the ICI hearings to be made public, but the three-member body, headed by a retired Supreme Court justice, said it did not want to livestream and open its hearing to the public to avoid a trial by publicity.
After a closed-door hearing, ICI Executive Director Brian Hosaka told a news briefing what the body was doing was “a whole-of-government approach to recover assets in the control of persons responsible for the anomalous flood control projects,”
He added representatives of various government agencies agreed to form a technical working group that would regularly meet “to update each other and share information that may fast-track the restitution of assets.”
But we find astonishingly strange the visit this week of Michael Keheller, the US embassy’s acting deputy chief of mission, who was personally welcomed by ICI chairperson Andres Reyes Jr. and member Rogelio Singson, the first diplomat to visit the ICI since Sept 13.
Hosaka said the visit was an opportunity to discuss the inner workings of the fact-finding body, adding “As one of the countries of great interest in the Philippines, [the US] was very much interested in what the ICI would do to address the problem of the flood control projects and other anomalous infrastructure projects.”
Did Keheller have to make the visit? Or was there something important than it first appears?
Read Hosaka: “Basically, he wanted to know what we have done, what we will be doing, and what we expect from the ICI.”
Before today’s sunset, the ICI should have the opportunity to let the people know they have no reason for any guarded anxiety with the diplomat’s visit.
Let the ICC, with the evidence already on its table, send the guilty to where they belong after returning the billions they have pocketed with the sleight of mind and hand.
Let the ICC be more transparent in everything it does, name the wrongdoers yesterday, not today, neither tomorrow – to mollify an enraged population.
