CONFUSED by the “laglagan” (loose translation: dumping) happening these days? Don’t be. Stay focus. The plunderers really aim to confuse to draw the attention away from them. Smaller criminals are meant to hide bigger criminals.
The ongoing exposé on the flood control fund theft has been so gut-wrenching and mind-blowing that it’s easy to lose track of the hundreds of millions and billions of pesos lost to kickbacks, budget insertions, and so on. There is corruption, and there is corruption, but this graphic parade of it leaves even the most jaded Filipino aghast. Our growing cynicism didn’t make us immune to stories of corruption and impunity.
Stay focused on the prosecution of the plunderers, from the bottom all the way to the top, on the radical structural reforms for transformative governance, and eventually—even if not in our lifetime—the eradication of the culture of corruption and impunity. How do you grow a generation that is raised to follow the law and elect leaders not on the basis of “ayuda” and political connections? A generation not indifferent to the electoral system, but vigilant, patient and schooled in the ways of democracy?
This prime-time expose—from CEOs to laborers, everyone is glued to one’s phone—has become, sadly, daily entertainment that is making us desensitized to the crime.
Fr. Flavie Villanueva, who has just been named the Ramon Magsaysay Awardee, put it bluntly in last week’s interview with TheDiarist.ph, after his award was announced: “….Entertaining? Is that how low we have become? Entertaining lang sa atin kung paano binaboy, niloko ang taong bayan?…Siguro nainis na ang Diyos…hindi na kayang ayusin ang bayan, kaya nagpadala na rin Siya ng baha, para matuklasan ang katotohanan (We regard as mere entertainment how the populace have been deceived?…Maybe even God Himself is pissed off at how this nation can’t be fixed, so He sent the floods to unravel the truth).”
Social media and the digital platforms are producing the most grabbing optics possible, from a teary-eyed Chief Executive to a phalanx of luxury cars and designer bags; the fashion weeks of Milan and Paris pale in comparison.
Social media has made the era of hidden wealth obsolete. Instead of hiding it, flaunt the wealth and go for tens of thousands of Shares and Likes. Thanks to the social media-induced fear of missing out (FOMO) or being left out, wanna-be influencers and almost everyone must post and share everything.
Social media has made the era of hidden wealth obsolete. Flaunt the wealth and go for tens of thousands of shares and likes
Ironically, social media has become one big Truth Commission. The one true Whistle-blower. Video technology has never been more useful. The fact that Filipinos are the most engaged in social media, at last, has been put to good use, possibly in aid of nation-building (no sarcasm here). And to think the initial urge of these dirty rich is just to make their designer bag go viral.
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Will only the small fry be fried? Contractors, Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) engineers and such are still small fry in comparison to the legislators and high bureaucracy/kleptocracy, no matter the billions, because they’re just carrying on, pardon the word, the “tradition,” the endemic system of corruption—but nonetheless, they must be held accountable and punished. The law must have teeth even in this day when the Philippine legal system is the most compromised and tainted institution.
So far, there’s been no big-enough fish yet.
And one doesn’t have to be a political scientist to suspect that all this “laglagan” is prep work for the 2028 elections, the war of attrition between the Marcos and Duterte forces, where legislators toe the political agenda line.
Indeed, it is sickening to think that the so-called exposés and mudslinging are mere realignment of camps for the elections, a pre-election annihilation of rivals. Or at the very least, they are just meant to neutralize the outrage on social media. A government’s token anger.
It comes across as merely the on-cam posturing of “legislators” who are there not to make laws, but to broker for infrastructure commissions. We deserve a legislation that makes progressive laws, not one that makes deals the way feudal lords do in K-drama. The political dynasty system turns the Senate and Congress into a running joke, except that people no longer find it funny.
People are watching if indeed the Administration will have the moral integrity and resolve to let the Independent Commission it created go all the way, and spare no one. The outcry against corruption is a crucial test for the Administration to prove that it exists for the people, not for the redemption and perpetuation of a political dynasty. That it named former Public Works Secretary Rogelio Singson to the Commission raised people’s hopes somehow. Rappler quoted the Press Secretary: “Singson, who was DPWH chief during the Noynoy Aquino administration, led one of the most significant reform efforts in the agency’s history…by initiating systems to promote transparency, eliminate ghost projects, and ensure proper use of public funds.”
Indeed, the tragically-trolled PNoy administration proved that genuine reforms, or at the very least, attempts at them, could be done with the political will and moral ascendancy of the president. As economist Cielito Habito wrote in his Inquirer column in 2016, about the outgoing Aquino administration: “The Department of Public Works and Highways is the best turnaround story in the Aquino administration, having metamorphosed from being among the most notoriously corrupt to among the most highly admired among the Cabinet departments.”
Noynoy Aquino’s administration at least aimed to make good his message: “Kung walang corrupt, walang mahirap.”
And it must be remembered that in his time, the Commission of Audit was empowered—in plain sight. And the Budget was not treated like a giant cookie jar lawmakers and government officials could dip their hands into anytime. Today “insertions” has become a colloquial term.
It is when government and the people thrive on a culture of impunity—when everyone is above the law, from the conglomerates to traffic aides—that the country is robbed of its future.
Again, at least—we live in times when we’re content with “at least”—all this exposé has put to good use today’s cancel-out culture. Netizens are mercilessly swift in shaming ill-gotten wealth. We hope that this dirty wealth-shaming will lead to a revival of Filipino values of integrity, moral uprightness, hard decent work, until the GenZs, the Alphas realize that that’s really the way to go, that they can do better than their parents and grandfathers. This crisis, we hope, will turn the youth’s viral shout-out into a force (virtual and physical) to shut down a corrupt, damaged culture. We hope that the future generation, rich and poor, will acquire the critical thinking to cancel the trolls and fake news (seniors, we notice, are perennial victims of fake news).
“To the Filipino people: May we never lose our patience with the ways of democracy, and may we never take it for granted or be passive in its defense” were PNoy’s words.
A GenZ looking at the distant prospects of employment once told me why he wanted to migrate: “Here, to make good money, you either have to run for government office or pay off those who are in office.”
And I didn’t have the heart to repeat PNoy’s quote about democracy.
