EDITORIAL - More bureaucratic fat

A Supreme Court order is reportedly derailing the creation of another anti-corruption body tailor-made for former senator Panfilo Lacson. Malacañang has made no secret of President Aquino’s plan to recruit Lacson into his team, but the retired senator is still a person looking for an office.

Being a former national police chief, Lacson’s name has surfaced in the past months as a possible Customs commissioner or head of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force. Both positions, however, are not vacant, so the latest word is that a new body, tentatively called the Presidential Commission Against Corruption, would be formed to accommodate Lacson. A Supreme Court ruling on the creation of the Truth Commission, however, declared that any new office created by the President needs the approval of Congress.

Apart from the SC ruling, Malacañang should also consider whether another anti-graft body is needed, especially one with police powers, as suggested by Lacson. The battle against graft is complex, with the big fish who are implicated not surprisingly fighting back with the best lawyers. Large-scale corruption or plunder can put an offender away for life. And those accused of plunder in this country often have enough resources for a protracted and expensive legal fight. This is a war that cannot be left to people with insufficient knowledge of the law and who tend to shoot first and ask questions later.

The anti-corruption campaign is spearheaded by the Office of the Ombudsman, which could use more resources to do a better job. The office is assisted, to a certain extent, by the Department of Justice, the Commission on Audit, the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Anti-Money Laundering Task Force. If President Aquino wants to pour additional resources into the campaign against corruption, he should give those resources to these existing agencies instead of creating another layer of bureaucracy.

The Arroyo administration also created its own anti-graft body, which was eventually dissolved. If the President is bent on recruiting Lacson as part of his team, surely there is an existing office that can use the talents of the retired senator. The bureaucracy is bloated enough.