Unreachable ears of Duterte

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO
March L. Fianza

Corruption complaints do not reach the ears of President Duterte. That is comparable to the unreachable star that Chairman of the Board Frank Sinatra rendered in the “Impossible Dream”.
    Even while the President said Tuesday that he will give as much as P50K to P100K to the person who will whisper to him any illegal DPWH project, the problem is how an ordinary person can reach his ears.
    The President offered the reward money in order to help the Task Force Against Corruption (TFAC) in investigating corruption in government.
    All these times, presidents asked their constituents to report illegal acts in government offices but there has never been an instance when an ordinary person directly reported to the president about an anomaly.
    Quoting part of Duterte’s statement, he said, “If you know a big syndicate, a ghost project by an s._._. director, I will give you 50,000. Just whisper it to me, even if he’s your friend. If it involves huge contracts, don’t reveal your name. Just whisper to me about the project. I’ll give P100,000.”
    The President even said he would protect the tipsters’ identity, and that he would help them if they get harassed by the people involved in the project. In his own words he said “I will deal with the devil” and shoot them legally.
    “I will keep your identity secret until I reach my grave. And if ever they find out about you and harass you, just tell me…”         Easier said than done. Certainly, all those who heard his announcement on TV were all asking how they could whisper in his ears.
    There has to be a system that can work for the benefit of the ordinary complainant. The government launched the “8888” citizens’ complaint center but it has brought about some disappointment to complainants whose concerns were not addressed.
     In the process, it showed that one’s complaint received by the “8888” center was referred to the concerned government agency. It is asking a person who is the subject of the complaint to resolve the problem.
    Obviously, a complaint lodged against an official of that office may just find its way into the trash can. If that is the process, then there is no guarantee that a complaint against an erring government official will be addressed.
    Corruption has many faces depending on what government agency is involved. The common respondents that we read in the papers are the Bureau of Customs, the Philippine National Police and the DPWH, among many others.
    The ways to committing illegal acts are different depending again on the patrons. For example, the BOC has the smugglers; the police have the “lords” of gambling and drugs while the DPWH has the contractors.
    The news about corruption in the DPWH is common, and so with the annual allegations of insertions of lawmakers in the national budget. But what concerns the public is the worth of the project and the percentage of the amount spent on it, in addition to the percentages distributed in the process.
    The contractors and the government engineers know this so that it should not be hard for Sec. Mark Villar to clean the DPWH by identifying and suing the corrupt officials involved if he wants to.
    That is why Sen. Ping Lacson described the Honor Roll in the list of appropriations in the House’s version of the P4.5-trillion 2021 budget bill as “Horror Roll” in last Wednesday’s interpellation.
    The senator revealed the details of the appropriations in the proposed General Appropriations Act (GAA) which included a congressional district in Davao with an appropriation of P15.351B; one district in Albay with P7.5B; one district in Abra with P3.75B and one district in Benguet with P7.9B.
    “Yan ang honor roll, Mr. President; horror roll,” Sen. Lacson ended his interpellation. But the question in the mind of every senator who heard his report is: How much percentage of said amounts will really be spent on the projects?
    I pity Benguet. The news in the grapevine that a district is allotted so much funding that it cannot even implement is rooted in politics and the dream to occupy a position that one cannot win in an election, but one can buy. Benguet voters should think many times over.
    I think I heard somebody say that many who are appointed or elected into government office are faced with temptations, surrender to it, use their positions and become corrupt but very rich. Although, there are some who retire morally.
    Corruption stories in government are not new as we read about them daily. Pray that it has not become ingrained in the system nor mixed in the bloodstream. Otherwise, it sustains the failure “to right the unrightable wrong” in Frank Sinatra’s dream.