New multi-agency body offers new acronyms, few details on fight vs corruption
MANILA, Philippines — With barely a year left in the term of President Rodrigo Duterte, the administration, led by the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission last week formed the 49-member National Anti-Corruption Coordinating Council.
PACC chairman Greco Belgica led the launch last week of the NACC as part of the presidential commission's "Project Kasangga: Aksyon Laban sa Korapsyon." The project includes creating Anti-Corruption Coordinating Councils in government agencies.
Duterte will serve as the chairman of the council, with Belgica as vice-chair.
"The signing of Project Kasangga seals the president’s firm commitment to really fight corruption the best that he can by institutionalizing anti-corruption committees in all levels of government. We have not seen this in any government," Belgica said during the launch of the multi-agency body headed by the president.
The creation of the new body comes eight months after Duterte ordered the creation of a high-level inter-agency task force to probe the "entire government" of corruption. That body, headed by Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra, was initially called the "mega task force" against corruption.
The "mega task force" includes the PACC, the National Bureau of Investigation, National Prosecution Service, the Office of the Special Assistant of the President and the Anti-Money Laundering Council.
The DOJ said in October 2020 that they will invite the Commission on Audit, Civil Service Commission and the Ombudsman to work with the task force.
Formed in 2017, PACC creates NACC in 2021
The PACC, which Belgica chairs, was created in 2017 through Executive Order 43 after the president threatened to investigate Conchita Carpio Morales, ombudsman at the time, for corruption and abuse of power.
Duterte had slammed Morales along with deputies Melchor Arthur Carandang and Rodolfo Elman for pursuing a fact-finding investigation into allegations that the president had illegal bank accounts.
The PACC is tasked to look into allegations of excessive lifestyles and graft and corruption activities, and then recommend punishment against those officials which could range from suspension to removal from office.
The PACC’s powers were later expanded to include the authority to recommend to the president the filing of complaint before the Office of the Ombudsman and Department of Justice.
'Whole-of-nation' approach
How different will this latest anti-corruption council’s work will be against previously created panels?
Belgica explained that the council will follow a "whole-of-nation" approach like in the government's against illegal drugs and against the communist insurgency.
He said that the "war on drugs" saw the creation of Barangay Anti-Drug Abuse Councils while the government created the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict in its bid to crush communist rebels. NTF-ELCAC has counterpart councils on the local government level.
"All government offices will create their own ACCCs to eliminate, address, validate information and help in investigation," he explained in Filipino.
He said that the PACC's powers had been limited to investigating officials in higher positions. The commission has no jurisdiction over the rank-and-file workers of government, he said.
ACCCs can establish committees that may also have regular meetings where they will set agenda. Barangays may also set up ACCCs to identify and validate reports of corruption, he added.
The DOJ-led "mega task force" however had also launched its own operations center, where the public can file reports and complaints for the panel to look into. AS of June 9 this year, the panel received at least 220 complaints of alleged corrupt activities in government, and 210 of these complaints "had been acted upon quietly by the task force."
The complaints involved officials from local government units, to the Department of Public Works and Highways, Land Registration Authority, the Department of the Environment and Natural Resources, the Bureau of Customs and various Government-Owned and Controlled Corporations, Guevarra said in June.
What about the DOJ-led task force vs corruption?
Belgica said council’s work will be "complementary" to the DOJ-led task force. Reports that the NACC committees will receive will also help the DOJ in its probe, he added.
He noted that the Task Force Against Corruption "is more investigative" while the NACC aims to be “preventive as well as educative.”
Belgica illustrated: In case of internal auditors, they will be looking into corruption allegations, but with the NACC, corruption will be prevented. He did not detail how the council will implement its "preventive and educative" functions.
In line with the DOJ-led task force’s work, deputy ombudsmen will soon be deployed to corruption-laden agencies under the executive branch. This will be under the memorandum among the Office of the Ombudsman, Commission on Audit and Department of Justice to eradicate corruption.
It is unclear how different the work of deputy ombudsmen will be different from the ACCCs.
Belgica also said the NACC will mark "the start of something for the next administration to improve on," as he said the "solution has been laid down" already.
"Sa paglalatag antin ng ACCCs, ang gagawin na lang ng Kongreso ay lalagayan na lang ng batas para ma-expand ang jurisidiciton; pag nilagyan ng póndo, malalagyan lahat ng opisina hanggang sa barangay para labanan nang tunay yang korapsyon," he added.
(So, with our creation of the ACCCs, all Congress has to do is pass a law to expand its jurisdiction. If Congress funds it, we can put committees in all offices down to the barangay level to really fight corruption)
Duterte administration’s fight vs corruption
Duterte ran on a campaign against drugs, criminality and corruption. In his speeches, the president had often boasted that he will not tolerate a whiff of corruption — which critics have pointed is a campaign that failed.
The creation of the anti-corruption superbodies were preceded by corruption allegations. PACC was formed in response to the ombudsman's fact-finding investigation while the DOJ-led task force was created after a task force, which Guevarra also led, looked into corruption allegations at the Philippine Health Insurance Corp.
The NBI, an agency under the DOJ and part of the task force, had filed at least two batches of complaints against PhilHealth officials and staff before the ombudsman.
This latest anti-corruption council, which Duterte chairs, was created as the House of Representatives and Senate look into deficiencies in the spending of COVID-19 funds that state auditors had flagged.
The launch also came a day after Duterte lashed out at senators, particularly Sen. Richard Gordon who chairs the Blue Ribbon Committee, for scrutinizing pandemic spending.
Amid the Congress legislative inquiries, however, the DOJ-led task force has yet to say whether they will look into COA findings. Instead, Guevarra said, they will defer to the Ombudsman and let the COA audit to run its course.
Guevarra said in late August that COA reports "will indeed provide a good starting point," but noted that they "will take cue from the Ombudsman," the office that had prompted the creation of the PACC in 2017.
"For now, we’ll let the government agencies called out by the COA to comply with the latter’s recommendations, rectify any deficiencies found in their accounting records, and explain other audit observations made by the COA on the use of government funds," the DOJ chief also said.
The Office of the Ombudsman has also said they will not take action on the COA report on DOH’s utilization of its 2020 budget and will wait for "the completion of the auditing process as the agency is given the opportunity to ensure full implementation of all audit recommendations to improve the financial and operation efficiency of the DOH." — Kristine Joy Patag with reports from The STAR/Helen Flores
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