‘Who knows? With the well now finally poisoned, all these characters who only wanted to be in office because public office meant access to public riches will have no more reason to lust after political power.’
THIS is not the first time we have heard of a politician exposing shenanigans at the highest echelons of power. The history of Malacanang Palace, the Senate and the House of Representatives is littered with political exposés intended to reveal to the public how this or that individual, or this or that political faction, was betraying the very oath of office they have taken for personal or group interest. It’s a classic “look at him, he is corrupt; look at me, I’m clean” script meant to damage the fortunes of the target while boosting those of the “whistleblower.”
How many times has the Senate or the House floor been used for a speech delivered “on the basis of personal and collective privilege” for such a purpose? Or a press conference called in or by Malacanang for the same?
And for the last few weeks or so, we have again seen this script played out over and over. Not just as privileged speeches or press conferences, but also as testimony before either a House committee or a Senate committee. Someone discovers something fishy, looks into it further, and then makes an exposé. Several individuals are tarred, and they react. They deny, they deflect, they counter-charge. Witnesses are brought forward, each with a tale that captivates the general public, although it is obvious that when they speak, they are not telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but. Details are withheld, or are contradictory. But who cares? Depending on your political persuasion, you latch onto that part that bolsters your opinion while ignoring or glossing over those that are contrarian.
One or two indictments follow, but given the nature of our justice system, either a ruling takes forever to be handed down, or, once handed down, it is appealed. And again, given the nature of our justice system, the appeal is decided upon years later, at a time when either the convicted is dead, or has served long enough to warrant being released, or when the public is no longer interested or has forgotten because there is a new exposé they are feasting on.
In a few cases, like this one, some names are familiar. Recidivists, they are called; I prefer to look at the more recent involvements as “sequels,” like in the movies.
But each time there was an exposé, something crucial was missing. And that something is what made sequels possible. In the Netflix series “The Residence,” the lead character, Detective Cordelia Cubb, lectured her captive audience in the Yellow Room of the White House by saying: “Criminal activity is motive plus opportunity.” Taking off from that, to prevent sequels, one only had to eliminate either motive or opportunity.
When Singapore was established in 1965, its founder, Lee Kuan Yew, had the foresight that Singapore would need to diminish the motive for someone in public office to engage in corrupt practices and dip his sticky fingers into the public coffers. And PM Lee did that by making the salaries of public servants competitive with those of the private sector. There would now be less motive to wish to line one’s pockets, because a public servant is paid well. And there would be a desire to remain in the public sector for precisely the same reason.
But what about opportunity?
That’s where all the previous exposés and shenanigans in the highest echelons of government in the Philippines – actually, in every echelon of government in the Philippines – always fell short. You see, the exposés did very little in diminishing the opportunity for someone else to do the same. Why? Because they fell short of two very crucial factors: the exposés did not poison the well from whence the corrupt dipped their sticky fingers, and they did not go deep enough to uncover the institutional linkages that made all these possible.
In the past, the exposés focused on the perpetrator, not on his scheme and how his scheme came about. Take out the perpetrator and the scheme remained, perhaps dressed up a little bit as something else. And why was the scheme dressed up as something else now? Because those untouched by the exposé now could have, if they wanted, their own piece of the pie. And many did, though maybe not to the same extent as those who had been exposed. “Moderated greed.”
Listening to all the back and forth in the Senate Blue Ribbon committee hearings and the traditional and social media chatter they produce, I am hoping that the ultimate result that the President’s exposé of corruption in floodwater projects under the DPWH will lead to will be forever poisoning the well – not only in the DWPH itself which has been a favorite of the corrupt for more than half a century, but in the whole budget process itself which is actually where the whole opportunity to match the motive adds up to fulfill the criminal intent.
Public office is a public trust, and how public funds are disbursed and used is the ultimate test of such trust. Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last three or so months, nothing should be clearer to you than the fact that many of the men and women we have so entrusted with the power and the privilege to be our representatives have been betraying that trust because they’ve found “the well” and understood that there was this scheme that would allow them to draw from it as they perpetuated themselves in office.
That should end now. That scheme should be rooted out now from every corner of the vast government bureaucracy that for decades has hidden the true extent of the rot from the public.
And those we have trusted for far too long? Out they should go in the next electoral exercise just as we make sure that this exposé will poison the well for good.
Who knows? With the well now finally poisoned, all these characters who only wanted to be in office because public office meant access to public riches will have no more reason to lust after political power.
