Getting messier

So many wrongdoings past and present now being unearthed and reported by the media undoubtedly indicate that the much awaited reforms in politics and governance in this country are not happening. On the contrary politics are getting dirtier and corruption in government remains unabated and is even growing. The true state of this nation is turning out to be very much different from what PNoy told us in his address to Congress two weeks ago.

The filth in our politics has even seeped down to the Barangay level and youth sector where elections for Barangay (Bgy.) and Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) officials will be held this coming October 28, 2013. Candidates for the Bgy.and SK offices are now also spending lots of money to get themselves elected replicating the same dirty tactic they obviously learned from candidates for the higher local and national offices. This time they are using either their own funds or the funds also supplied by the higher officials they helped in previous elections.

The big turnout and mad rush of new voters on the last day of registration apparently show that, to ensure victory in the coming polls, candidates are herding and transporting new registrants composed mostly of transferees or vulgarly known as “flying voters”. Some registrants have falsified their age to qualify as voters or have already voted in the last elections as residents of another place but are now registering in a new Barangay for a price or valuable consideration given by the candidates in exchange for their votes.

Indeed, there is no more doubt that the elective positions even in the Barangay level have also become “juicy”. In the proposed budget, the 42,028 Barangay Captains will get a total of P68.3 billion as Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) which looks like the local counterpart of the Congressional pork. In Metro Manila alone, the 1,706 Barangays have an IRA of P5.2 billion. Hence like other candidates for higher offices, the aspirants for the Barangay and SK positions are also spending lots of money to get elected because their “investment” will have a bigger return. Government service seems to have become a lucrative business. 

The more dismaying aspect here is that most of these new registrants are informal settlers who have been promised protection from being relocated. This is a confirmation of our previous observation that squatting in this country will never be solved for as long as squatters are allowed to vote. As previously pointed out, the exercise of the right of suffrage must only be limited to the legitimate residents of the place where they intend to vote. The Comelec should adopt this policy especially in the coming Bgy and SK elections.

No less than the incumbent Comelec Chairman appointed by PNoy was surprised and alarmed by this phenomenon because it never happened before. The Comelec expected only about 800,000 new voters but the turn out already reached 1.2 million with many braving the rains, the long wait and even hunger just to be able to register. The price for such effort and hardship must really be very high. This is how low our elections have gone.

Sad to say, the Comelec with its PNoy appointed Chairman is not completely blameless here. The impunity displayed in violating the election laws even by the Barangay and SK candidates indicates that the Comelec is not properly doing its job of enforcing the election rules especially on campaign expenses. In fact the Chairman continues to ignore the many irregularities and violations of election law being exposed in connection with our automated election system using the PCOS machines, especially the recent printing of additional ballots for the May 13 elections long after it has been held. Unfortunately, since PNoy was his former client, his inaction here has been interpreted as an attempt to protect the validity of PNoy’s election in 2010 who won with the use of the same machines.  

On the other hand when it comes to governance, the pork scandal continues to hug the headlines as more and more scams are exposed involving this infamous Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) of senators and congressmen. In 2004, people were already outraged and shocked upon learning of the numerous anomalies in the use of the PDAF of several Congressmen to purchase fertilizers amounting to P728 million supposedly engineered by then Agriculture undersecretary Joc Joc Bolante.

Indeed the public indignation over this fertilizer fund scam led to the filing of several cases before the Sandiganbayan. It was also one of the reasons for the downfall of the past regime and PNoy’s ascent to power. Hence people expected him to get rid of the PDAF used in this scam. But exactly the opposite happened. He even used the PDAF to compel members of Congress to do his bidding especially in the enactment of some controversial laws. And when a much bigger scam amounting to P10 billion was recently exposed involving the use of fake NGOs to access pork barrel funds of legislators, PNoy even increased the pork from P24 billion to P27 billion instead of scrapping it altogether. There is really something very wrong here especially considering that PDAF is not necessary at all in the performance of purely legislative functions.

Something is also wrong in the fight against the corruption especially in the Bureau of Customs. After lashing out at the entire workforce and calling them names because of rampant smuggling costing the government P200 billion in annual losses, PNoy did not accept the offer of resignation of its Chief nor act on the letters of its two deputies quitting their jobs. Neither is there any action to identify and prosecute the alleged “powerful forces” working inside the Bureau.

By this time, PNoy must have realized that pointing fingers at others to project a “clean” image may even cause a backlash. Now even his sister Ballsy is being dragged into an alleged $30 million payoff in the purchase of MRT trains from the Czech corporation, ‘Inekon”. Social media has been spreading the information that the deal was allegedly being facilitated by his cousin Jorge A. Lichauco and Ballsy’s husband Eldon Cruz. The deal however did not push through when the company did not participate in the bidding because of the change in the terms of reference and not because it was blacklisted. In fairness to all concerned and in the interest of truth, an in depth probe must be conducted to find out what really happened here.

So far, it looks like the daang matuwid is getting messier.

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