Donors mulling RP corruption record

The Arroyo admin never runs out of officials who bring it scorn. There was Jose Pidal in 2004, Virgilio Garcillano in 2005, Jocjoc Bolante in 2006, Lintang Bedol in 2007, and the ZTE scam Greedy Group++ in 2008. This year saw a train of more embarrassing figures: decadent Reps. Danny Suarez and Martin Romualdez, and wealth-hiding Rep. Mikey Arroyo. Now comes ex-congressman Butch Pichay to cap the admin’s vile image.

Pichay, head of the Local Waterworks Utilities Administration, threw a lavish office anniversary party last Sept. 30. At the time, tens of thousands of flood victims in Metro Manila and environs were scrounging for relief. President Arroyo reportedly joined the seven-course banquet and boozing for a while. The press got wind of the ostentation and promptly reported it. Two information officers were demoted. And Pichay lashed at critics who called his affair “the height of insensitivity.” Said he: “Insensitivity belongs to those who give out critical words instead of helping out the victims of the calamity.” He forgets that extravagance is against public service laws.

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When donating to charity, people reasonably ascertain if the donee is trusty. So do governments when giving aid. It thus shouldn’t surprise if the US government, while doling Ondoy disaster relief, recalls how only last Aug. RP’s president pigged out on a $15,000-dinner in Washington DC. And when the UN pitches in too, it ponders Gloria Arroyo’s $20,000-feast that same weekend near its New York headquarters. Hearing pleas for food and medicine, European states naturally will consider recent ratings of RP as Asia’s sleaziest. Ultimately they will all give, out of pity for Filipinos, but pray that the aid reaches them. Already there are reports of relief boxes being raffled for a fee, or repacked with names and photos of electioneering pols. Overseas Pinoys are disgusted having to course donations through unreliable Malacañang lest these be taxed. In a pre-calamity poll American expatriates opined that graft is RP’s worst malady. And Pope Benedict XVI, meeting last week Manila’s newest envoy to the Vatican, wished that RP officials would learn ethical leadership.

Of course, Malacañang is playing deaf to international and domestic distrust. Spokesmen dismissed Arroyo’s latest satisfaction ratings — minus-38 percent — as the result of bad press about the lavish US dinners. (Did they expect praise?) Political allies taunted critics nonstop to join admin relief drives instead of pointing up its disaster ineptness. The disaster chatterer, soon to run for election, deliberately misinterpreted the Papal words as advice to Filipinos to vote wisely next year.

The Arroyo admin is only fooling itself. Already it has been weighed and found wanting. Transparency International specifically mentioned the ZTE scam as the kind of corporate malpractice that aggravates Third World sleaze. To which ZTE rejoined with a hint that it was the Filipino side that had asked for bribes. Arroyo frequently visits the Middle East of late, advertising this or that supposed investment. But no sheikh has been fooled to bet on RP, not after seeing presidential entourages engorge on steak and liquor. The World Bank learned the hard way that it takes two long years for any RP agency to take up its report on manifold roadwork fraud. And when the Senate did open the case, the Ombudsman still sat on it. Malacañang is telling foreign donors that it needs eight to ten Doppler radars at P100 million apiece to accurately track harsh weather, plus billions more to relocate squatters from riverbanks and lakeshores. But aid givers know how much each Palace ally misspends in pork per year: P200 million a senator and P70 million a congressman, more than enough for RP to fund itself. Due to corruption, RP has slid in the UN Development Program’s latest poverty index. International do-gooders have taken to delivering aid via local NGOs, not official conduits. Were it not for Ondoy, foreign governments would be withholding aid to RP under Arroyo. And yet, she and her allies are plotting to prolong themselves in power.

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What ever happened to the ballyhooed peer review of the toxicology report on banana plantation aerial spraying? The refereeing should be made public once and for all. It will settle the scientific bases to ban or not the spewing of fungicide from airplanes. Noisy pickets of the protagonists cannot resolve whether the practice sickens plantation-side villages and even kills fetuses. Health is a science. Impartial scrutiny of a scholar’s work by fellow-experts, a must in health studies, can confirm or debunk findings.

Dr. Allan Dionisio had led ten UP-Manila medics in 2006 in assessing the effects of aerial spraying in Davao del Sur. The work, commissioned by the health department, affirmed an earlier report by Dr. Romeo Quijano: fungicide kills leaf pests all right, but also poisons humans. Community NGOs promptly campaigned for aerial-spray ban. But banana growers questioned the scientists’ methodology and the victims’ integrity. The battle has since been shifting from courtrooms to congressional committees.

A group of fertilizer and pesticide makers suggested that UP-Manila conduct a peer review. The college chancellor picked the evaluators eight months ago, and a report has been submitted. All that’s needed now is for the health office to request a copy. And Undersecretary Mario Villaverde had promised to do just that last month. So what’s delaying it?

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 “The grand opera of life is mangled and distorted because human voices are not following the Divine conductor.” Shafts of Light, Fr. Guido Arguelles, SJ

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