Of scams, scandals and controversies

There, indeed, are more funds in the Philippines. With P10 billion allegedly squandered by siphoning pork barrel funds into some hazy and rag tag peoples' organizations, we must be a rich nation pretending to be poor. Our problem may yet be an endemic case of unexplained poverty.  For a poor and struggling nation with more than 10 million people trying very hard to survive below the poverty line, how could solons have the heart to allegedly throw such huge sums of peoples' money? While there are millions of urban and rural poor who sleep without eating dinner, these powerful people are squandering allegedly the peoples' money.

If there should be a most concerned sector, it should be the labor front because we are the ones whose hard work keeps the country going. We are the ones whose labor produces the goods in the factories, we are the ones planting and harvesting the food for a hundred million Filipinos. We are the ones who clean the streets, transport all people and goods, carry the burden of this third world economy in our bare shoulders. We are the ones paying our taxes in all our transactions. We are sad, angry and outraged at the grand larceny perpetrated by callous people whom we voted to office.

The government has not solved the mother of all scams, the fertilizer fiasco, has not even arrested, much less prosecuted and jailed the perpetrators of the PAG-IBIG loan controversy. The government has allowed a convicted general to plead guilty to a lesser felony, when everybody was saying that he allegedly committed an outrageous series of acts supposedly depriving the military of much needed funds badly required for combatants. The euro generals have not been made to suffer for their offenses. A senator's wife was arrested, convicted and jailed in the US and Congress remained silent on the matter. Many, many other despicable acts have remained unpunished.

When I was younger, there was a whole shipload of imported rice that was lost and never recovered. There was also a very infamous public highways scandal that led to the conviction of some small guys. In not so distant past, the president and general manager of a top government-owned corporation, who used the agency's fund to buy a very expensive painting. He was allowed to retire with a substantial retirement benefits. There was also a major case filed against the members of the board of another agency for allowing its fund to be lent to an influential businessman who bought a luxurious condo. They were acquitted. There are thousands of scoundrels, scalawags and rascals in high places. They are called “honorable” instead of being jailed.

Alas, Filipinos have short memory. They reelect the same trapos who squander public funds and do not have the basic respect for the people whom they are supposed to serve. Investigations are initiated, left and right, but nothing clear, much less positive ever come out of all such posturing and saber-rattling. The sex for flight controversy started with a bang and ended without a whimper. Politicians keep on concocting things to humor and excite the masses, then keep mysteriously silent in no time at all. What then is happening to our country and people?