Scourge

Thirteen people are reported dead due to Tropical Storm Enteng. The number could still rise as rescuers search for several more missing persons and as heavy monsoon rains continue to pour.

The largest cluster of casualties were killed in Antipolo and nearby hillside towns. Most of those killed were buried under landslides or carried away by flash floods. The casualty profile calls attention to the extensive deforestation happening in the mountains east of the metropolis as well as settlements on dangerous hillsides.

Extensive damage brought about by heavy rainfall now seems a scourge hitting us precisely where population density is highest. The calamity will likely continue as La Niña promises more extreme weather events well into the next year.

The extreme flooding that happened when we were hit by Tropical Storm Carina just weeks ago was blamed on clogged waterways. The flash floods and landslides associated with Enteng are due to poor forest management, unbridled settlement in danger zones and obviously substandard governance of our waterways.

As this is written, authorities at the La Mesa Dam report that the facility has reached maximum capacity. Beyond this point, water will spill into the Tullahan River and flood the communities downriver.

This problem just seems to compound with every calamity. The more insistent our leaders talk about building resilience in anticipation of extreme weather, the more profound the calamities that extreme weather brings.

We have spent trillions of pesos on several thousand flood management projects to no avail. Apart from climate change (a convenient scapegoat), bad forestry management and atrocious waste disposal systems, we now have to talk about the chronic corruption that seems to infect every aspect of our shared lives.

The other week, a new movement composed of retired military officers and clergymen was launched in the hope of reigniting the campaign against corruption. In the briefing, the campaigners provided a truly disturbing picture of how much of taxpayer money intended for public works is lost to corruption. After discounting the layers of kickbacks, it appears that on average only about 30 percent of the funds go to actual projects on the ground.

If only 30 percent of the budget goes to actual construction, this means the projects are either substandard or outright useless. This should explain why, despite the expenditure of over P1 billion a day, the floods seem to be getting worse with every passing extreme weather event.

It also means that about P700 million per day goes to the insatiable systems of corruption that passes off as governance in this country. The corruption abets the extreme inequality that forces the poor to build homes on perilous slopes or dangerous coastal areas. It also explains what nourished the perverse money politics that passes off as democracy in this country.

A political system that is shaped and nourished by chronic corruption cannot make life better for our people. It will only magnify our vulnerabilities in the face of more extreme weather events.

The chronic corruption is conserved by a warped political culture of dependence and patronage. In the aftermath of the Antipolo landslides, for instance, the common folk praised the generosity of politicians who delivered relief to the evacuated communities. But they did not question why the forests were devastated and communities were forced to be built in perilous hillsides.

It is easy for politicians to win high approval ratings in this country. All that needs to be done is to expand the dole-out programs that make life only momentarily better for the poorest Filipinos while condemning them to irretrievable poverty.

The nation is bound to perdition unless we put chronic corruption at the center of our political discussion. We desperately need a new type of politics to emerge – one so fundamentally different from the everyday politics we know.

Guo

Former Bamban, Tarlac mayor Alice Guo was arrested in Indonesia early morning yesterday and is expected to be deported back to the country soon. We should thank the Indonesian police for their efficiency in locating and arresting this fugitive.

It was easy for Alice Guo to exit the country. With the vast amounts of money available to her, courtesy of the criminal syndicate she is allegedly part of, she simply has to pay off bureaucrats who might hinder her escape.

Guo was said to be trying to find a route to the Golden Triangle area where the syndicate she allegedly works with holds great sway. Had the Indonesia police not moved as swiftly as they did, she might have found sanctuary in some internet gaming compound in Myanmar, there to be throughly protected by the Myanmar military.

It is clear from the Guo case that the POGO systems our police is now cracking down on is part of an extensive international criminal network working under the cover of internet gaming to make real money through drug dealing, human trafficking and other related activities. Rooting out the many branches of this international syndicate will be a challenge. They remain in a position to buy off law enforcers and political protectors.

Before the policy decision was finally taken to root out POGO operations, the criminal syndicates underpinning them have struck deep roots. Those roots found fertile ground in our chronically corrupt political system. It is a system that allowed layered ownership of gambling operations, the procurement of fake citizenship papers and the distraction of our law enforcement agencies.