House joins eight vs corruption

Imagine the shock and anger felt by Filipino taxpayers and the marginalized sectors of our society when a government official himself said that the Philippines is losing around P700 billion, or around 20 percent of the country’s total budget appropriation yearly, due to corruption.

Deputy Ombudsman Cyril Ramos, who pointed out that the Philippines ranked 6th most corrupt among Asia-Pacific countries, said the figure can finance 1.4 million houses for the poor, medical assistance for around seven million Filipinos, or a rice buffer stock that can last for more than a year. In fact, he told those in attendance at the National Police Commission’s summit on crime prevention that with that amount, no Filipino would get hungry.

What angers Filipino taxpayers and consumers more, however, is the fact that the government had to impose new or higher taxes on items like fuel, automobiles, tobacco, documentary stamps, sweetened beverages, among others, just to gain an additional P51.5 billion in revenues last year, lower than the P63.3-billion goal for Package I of the TRAIN law.

During his most recent State of the Nation Address, President Duterte said no amount of euphemism can trivialize or normalize betrayal of public trust through corruption, pointing out that it is an injury laced with insult and both a national embarrassment and a national shame.

When the President signed the 2019 General Appropriations Act last April, he vetoed P95.37 billion worth of projects in the Department of Public Works and Highways budget. In his veto message, he said: “Our positions should never be used for personal gain; otherwise, we are not worthy of the offices we hold. As public officials, we must honor our offices and the Filipino people whom we serve.

For his part, House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano urged his colleagues to help transform the image of the body. Upon assuming the leadership post in the House, Cayetano immediately called on his fellow lawmakers to make the House of Representatives a “House of the People” that Filipinos love and respect.

Saying that people love their congressmen but hate the House as an institution, Cayetano said he wants the House to be held in high esteem in the same way that Filipinos respect the Senate as a whole.

Cayetano has identified a number of reforms to achieve this, starting with ensuring that the national budget would not be used as a tool to commit corruption by being free of any fat, illegal insertions, or parked funds.

Last Tuesday, DPWH Secretary Mark Villar, during the hearing of the House appropriations committee on the proposed P534.3 billion budget of the department, was asked by Cayetano himself if the DPWH budget had any pork barrel in it. Villar assured the Speaker that there was none as he had received strict instructions from President Duterte to help curb corruption by ensuring that reforms are in place in crafting the DPWH budget, including a shift to line-item budgeting. 

Cayetano asked the Secretary next if there are parked funds in the DPWH budget, referring to the practice when a lump sum with no specific use is listed under the budget of a congressional district. The sum, however, is merely “parked” in that district and will later be used for a different district or project. Villar said parking funds have no place in his department.  

The Speaker stressed that members of the 18th Congress have agreed that they will not cover for each other and that any scam uncovered will go straight to either the Office of the President or the Office of the Ombudsman, with the House fully cooperating in the investigation.

 To ensure more transparency, one of the changes introduced by Cayetano in the House is to livestream plenary sessions and even committee meetings. This, he said, is one way to guard against any illegal insertions when the proposed GAA is debated on the floor. And of course, to make the public a part of the legislative process as observers. 

Libel raps

Speaking of corruption, Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) chief Caesar Dulay has had enough of what he claims are malicious, sweeping and unfounded accusations that there is rampant corruption in his office and that he made money from several tax-related transactions.

Just recently, Dulay filed a complaint for three counts of libel and seven counts of cyberlibel against special envoy for public diplomacy to China and newspaper columnist Ramon Tulfo for certain false, reckless, and defamatory allegations in his series of columns that maligned not only the bureau chief but also other revenue officials and the BIR itself.

Dulay is seeking P20 million in moral damages which he said will be donated to L’Arche (Ang Arko ng Pilipinas Inc.), a community dedicated to taking care of mentally-handicapped children.
According to Dulay, one particular column by Tulfo claims that under his stewardship as BIR commissioner, there was rampant corruption and that he has skeletons in the closet. The said newspaper column was carried in social media.

The second column, according to Dulay, pictured him as an “insatiable greedy extortionist, a cheat and a corrupt official in (President) Digong’s government,” alleging that bribe was given in connection with multi-billion peso tax cases involving delinquent corporations.

Meanwhile, the third column called for a corruption probe against Dulay regarding Del Monte’s “compromised” payment of P65 million instead of the “huge delinquent tax amounting to P8.7 billion.

Dulay in his complaint said the publication of the three opinion articles, which are false and defamatory, not only directly pictured him “as a corrupt official, an animal, a thief, minion of Satan, greedy bastard,” but also maliciously portrayed him as a “criminal” to the effect that he made billions of pesos in connection with the transactions of Mighty Corp. and Del Monte Foods Corp.

In his social media account, Tulfo has posted a video of two BIR officials (whose faces were not shown) talking about corruption in the BIR involving Dulay, one of who Tulfo identified as Teresita Angeles. But Angeles said she was not the woman in the video.

Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea had earlier filed a complaint for libel and cyberlibel against Tulfo and is seeking P140 million in damages.

For comments, e-mail at [email protected]