EDITORIAL - More than gotten away

A total of 45 officials and personnel of the Bureau of Immigration have been dismissed for their involvement in the “pastillas scheme” where they allegedly allowed foreigners easy entry into the country as long as they could pay bribes; bills rolled to resemble the sweets.

The firing came with the usual coup de grace from the Justice department that they are perpetually disqualified from holding public office and forfeit their retirement benefits.

We suppose this administration can tout it is a way to show they will not tolerate corruption. But the fact that the dismissal was only implemented now, even as President Rodrigo Duterte claimed they had been dismissed July last year, takes any impact it might have on people away.

According to a report in Philstar.com, even after President Duterte’s claim that they had been fired, some went back to work after a suspension.

To be fair, serious accusations like these require a formal investigation to determine who gets to be fired. And one was done, with the findings only released last week by the DOJ, which accounts for the delay.

But this only goes to show how long some processes really take in this country --especially those involving justice or dealing out the appropriate penalties to those who deserve them.

If this is the case then the government doesn’t have the right to brag about how good it is in going after corruption. The investigation should not have taken this long.

Many of those actually terminated way long after they were announced fired were practically allowed enough time to still earn a small fortune in pay before they were let go. This aside from the “sweets” they already got from letting foreigners in at the drop of a hat.

If it takes that long to find out who did what and to implement the corresponding penalties then we can be sure there are other public officials and government employees out there who have more than gotten away with offenses more serious than letting suspect foreigners in.