‘To be able to profit from the desperation of millions of people must require an enormous amount of “kapal ng mukha” that gives you the ability to go to bed and sleep soundly every night.’
SO, what’s new? One company newly incorporated gets a huge government contract based on overpriced supplies
This could have happened 10 years ago. Or 20. Or 50.
It’s nothing new, really. But this one is rather depressing for a couple of reasons, which I will try to list, but in no apparent order.
First, it involves a company apparently hastily incorporated — again what’s new — with a parent company whose officers are under investigation for stock market manipulation and the like. Actually, not only are they under investigation; it seems a warrant of arrest has been issued for at least two of its executives.
Second, the company seems to have benefited from close links to the powers-that-be, again nothing new, except that these powers-that-be have oft expressed how they detest corruption, with the top banana repeatedly boasting that a mere whiff of corruption will result in the firing of people involved. Given such a boast you would have expected the powers-that-be to have been doubly or triply careful about the people they deal with. But it seems they did not take the time to dig into the background of the supplier because a cursory dig would have revealed a lot.
Unless they didn’t want to dig. Or unless they did, saw all the red flags, but didn’t care.
And this, despite the “mere whiff” boasts from 2016 to the present.
Third, the items overpriced are items that everyone was required to have in order to reduce the chances of contracting the dreaded COVID-19. Their overprice, of course, cascades down to the market price the ordinary citizen has to pay to buy these items.
Fourth, the money involved is public money, which public servants are supposed to handle as fiduciary: hence they are not to spend it as wantonly as they can spend their own personal funds. More importantly they are not to spend it in a way that they profit personally, at the expense and to the detriment of the owner of the funds.
And fifth, do we need to stress that this is a time of a pandemic? When people are afraid of dying, are losing their jobs and other means of livelihood, and are desperately seeking vaccines? To be able to profit from the desperation of millions of people must require an enormous amount of “kapal ng mukha” that gives you the ability to go to bed and sleep soundly every night.
Not to mention go on a spending spree buying houses and fast cars — which are now, I am told, being disposed of hastily.
How could our public officials end up in a situation like this? Was it hubris? Was it supreme confidence that they could get away with it? Was it carelessness also in some sense, resulting now in the many “recibo” in the form of photos and news stories that are recirculating on social media?
As the Duterte administration winds down it is now facing its most serious crisis. Ever.
Because this one threatens to envelope not just lowly mid-level officials; it threatens to envelope many powerful people going all the way to the top. And it is coming at a time when many are already looking to 2022 and a post-Duterte presidency — which means the emergence of people and groups who are now calculating that serving the interests of those in power may not be in their best interest anymore.
Birds that flock together make for a juicy target.
