Daylight robbery of the Philippine people—see:
That’s all it took for the appropriations panel of the House of Representatives to approve the proposed P9-billion budget of the Office of the President for next year.
Citing parliamentary courtesy to a coequal branch of government, the number of questions Executive Secretary Vic Rodriguez was asked by some House lawmakers about the spending bill totaled a big fat zero.
The session was terminated after 10 minutes, despite over half of the budget request for 2023 coming in the form of confidential and intelligence funds.
A similar treatment probably awaits the proposed P2.3-billion budget of the Vice President—over thrice the amount allocated to the previous holder of the office—which is also chock full of discretionary funds. We would not be surprised if the majority would simply let this one slide, too.
The worst part of it is that this is not the first time Congress has given the Chief Executive a free pass when it comes to approving the office’s budget. In varying degrees, lawmakers have also allowed the fund allocation requests of previous presidents—former president Rodrigo Duterte’s budget also receiving the 7-minute express approval service—to breeze through unexamined, without anyone in the hall having yet warmed his seat.
…Yet, these very people—many of whom were elected on promises to safeguard the interests of Filipinos—have so cavalierly abdicated their responsibility to protect the money levied from their constituents through taxes, all in the name of “parliamentary courtesy,” which is probably Philippine legislature shorthand for “not wanting to upset the President and endangering the release of government funds for my district.”
…Will the lawmakers also not even bother to press Malacañang for details of the staggering P588 billion in “unprogrammed” funds in the P5.268 trillion national budget for 2023, which Deputy Speaker Ralph Recto earlier questioned?
https://opinion.inquirer.net/156734/seven-minutes#ixzz7shT2C0gA
Confidential and intelligence funds are exempt from public audit.
MANILA, Philippines — Opposition Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III urged his fellow senators to realign the P150 million in confidential funds allotted to the Department of Education (DepEd) for its 2023 budget, saying the money could be used to repair schools damaged by Typhoon Karding (international name: Noru) in many parts of Luzon.
“The P150 million should be transferred because it is not in the practice or culture of DepEd to have confidential funds. This must be placed in items directly related to teaching or learning, not confidential funds and yet, they will claim that it will still be for education,” he said.
Discouraged or reduced
The P150 million will better serve its purpose if used to buy chairs, tables or build classrooms, Pimentel said.
The Senate minority leader made the statement a day after the Senate finance committee endorsed the P710.6-billion DepEd budget, which contains P150 million in confidential funds for the education secretary, Vice President Duterte.
Pimentel urged the national government to stop the “practice or culture” in the executive department of having confidential and intelligence funds, which are beyond scrutiny by the Commission on Audit.
…At the House of Representatives earlier in the week, opposition Rep. Edcel Lagman of Albay expressed the same sentiments expressed by Pimentel regarding the allocation of confidential and intelligence funds in the P5.268-trillion 2023 national budget.
He urged fellow House members to be “very judicious and frugal” in allocating such funds, which amounted to about P9.27 billion in the proposed budget, and should find ways to finance important government programs that received only small amounts or zero allotments for 2023.
Lagman pointed to the P4.5-billion confidential and intelligence fund that is nearly half of the proposed P9.03-billion budget for the Office of the President (OP).
The proposed budget for the Office of the Vice President amounting to P2.29 billion included P500 million in confidential funds, a huge increase from less than P10 million in previous years, according to documents from Lagman’s office.
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1673759/koko-having-confidential-funds-not-a-deped-norm#ixzz7shVeW5MK
Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel III last week questioned the staggering P544 billion lump sum appropriation in the 2023 budget of the Department of Public Works and Highway (DPWH), saying it could be a “rich source of pork barrel” funds for lawmakers.
Without itemizing or identifying the programs covered by the lump sum, Pimentel said the DPWH would have “blanket authority” to disburse the P544 billion which, according to the senator, accounts for 75 percent of the agency’s P718.4 billion budget for next year.
“In the spirit of transparency, I call on the DPWH to provide the details of this huge allocation, down to the last centavo, so the Senate and the public will be able to scrutinize it,” Pimentel said.
Similarly, Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman last week flagged the P9.29 billion in confidential funds of various departments under the P5.26 trillion 2023 national budget.
“The more enormous the funds are, the greater … the possibility of graft,” Lagman said, as he urged Congress to “exercise judiciousness and frugality in the allocation of confidential and intelligence funds.”
As Pimentel pointed out, the allocation of lump sums has been an “old practice” that abets the use of public funds on the wrong priorities. Worse, the money could end up in the pockets of corrupt officials and contractors through substandard projects paid for by congressional pork barrel funds.
Following the Inquirer’s exposé of the P10-billion pork barrel funds diverted to ghost projects and fictitious nongovernment organizations by businesswoman Janet Napoles in July 2013, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), and its predecessor, the Countrywide Development Fund, the official terms for pork barrel funds allocated to the pet projects of members of Congress.
But Congress has since found other creative ways to circumvent the landmark court ruling in the annual budget, particularly through the DPWH, a favorite agency among lawmakers looking to score infrastructure and similar projects for their districts.
Aside from lump sum allocations, confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) are red flags in the annual government budget because of their very nature. According to Lagman, confidential funds “breed corruption” since their audit by the Commission on Audit (COA) cannot be disclosed to Congress and the public.
…The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) also presented a P149-billion lump sum budget for the Support for Infrastructure Projects and Social Programs, whose acronym SipSP or “sipsip” has raised eyebrows among senators for its unabashed attempt to suck up to the new administration. The bigger issue however remains: what exactly are the projects included here?
As expected, the House—dominated by administration allies—hastily approved the 2023 national budget.
https://opinion.inquirer.net/157755/scrutinizing-secret-funds#ixzz7shYnP6mu
Giving P669.2 million to agencies with no security functions is questionable not only because of the amount involved, according to the opposition senator. Congress, he says, must nip this practice in the bud before it sets a dangerous precedent.
Congress must nip in the bud the revived practice of providing confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) to a number of agencies that are questionable not only for their impropriety but also for the unusual jump in their amounts in the proposed 2023 national budget, Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III said on Wednesday.
Pimentel expressed concern over the P9.3 billion worth of CIFs earmarked in the proposed budget for next year spread out across various offices, including P669.2 million for three agencies that had nothing to do with national security.
“We urge Congress not to start the practice of providing certain agencies with [CIFs] when for many years, they have existed without these,” he said.
“We face a great risk that if this practice is not stopped, it will only be sustained for many more years and the amount given [for next year] will even be used as a floor amount [for the succeeding year],” he added.
Pimentel made the statement in his interpellation as the Senate began plenary deliberations on House Bill No. 4488, or the proposed P5.26-trillion general appropriations bill.
…He specifically flagged the allotment of P500 million for the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and P150 million for the Department of Education (DepEd), or a total of P650 million in CIFs at the disposal of Vice President Sara Duterte.
A total of P19.2 million is also being proposed to be allotted for the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG).
The three offices comprise the “new” agencies seeking CIFs in next year’s budget purportedly because they did not receive such allocation this year.
“We should no longer start this practice because once it starts, it will already be very difficult to stop and it will be a recurring problem,” he argued. …
—WITH A REPORT FROM INQUIRER RESEARCH INQ
Doesn’t the public deserve to know where and how their money is being spent?
Plunder galore—except that in this case, it’s legal.
What’s wrong with lump sum allotments and confidential funds? See:
Robert Klitgaard famously defined corruption as monopoly plus discretion minus accountability (C=M+D-A). Confidential and intelligence funds fit these conditions to a T. The country has just tread onto this slippery slope that will be catastrophic for the nation, already in the throes of an unprecedented confluence of natural and man-made disasters. As if the Pharmally and Department of Education (DepEd) scams are insufficient signals that the government’s transparency and accountability have collapsed in the dark night of the Duterte administration.
There are five doors to this slippery slope of confidential corruption: Door 1 is the absence of a well-thought-out strategy for using the funds by an administration that is so new to power they do not have a real, tangible program of government yet, except for the broad strokes given in exhortatory presidential speeches. Ballpark estimates in the billions for fuzzy tasks that could not be verbalized commensurate to the gargantuan amounts bandied about. The Office of the President wants P2.25 billion in intelligence funds and P2.25 billion in confidential funds.
How disproportionate this is to the total enterprise of democratic and constitutional governance becomes clear when we realize that, as Rep. Edcel Lagman points out, the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development charged with the critical housing and shelter program of the country gets only P1.4 billion, the Civil Service Commission that manages the quality and qualifications of the entire government bureaucracy gets only P1.9 billion. The Department of Tourism, which needs infrastructure and service intensification to reach the tipping point to even out the agricultural and industrial sector setbacks, is getting only P3.5 billion. The bastion of participatory democracy, the Commission on Elections, gets only P4.9 billion, while the bastion of public accountability, the Office of the Ombudsman, gets only P4.7 billion.
Compounding this worrisome development, the Vice President is seemingly trying to keep up with the President. She wanted P650 million in confidential funds for the Office of the Vice President (OVP) and the Department of Education. The broad strokes justification for DepEd confidential funds is lame: “The success of a project, activity or program really depends on very good intelligence and surveillance because you want to target specific issues and challenges.”
…Door 2 is the cabal of interested and influential parties with selfish personal interests awaiting the release of confidential and intelligence funds.
…Door 3 is the unexamined agency system for approval, disbursement, and reporting for confidential and intelligence funds. There must be ultimate oversight by Congress, but it is worrisome when Lagman laments that “The Commission on Audit informed this chamber that although it makes a post-audit of confidential and intelligence funds disbursement, it could not disclose the results of such audits because of the nature of confidentiality of said funds.”
Door 4 refers to the evidence of the results, variously packaged into project outputs, program outcomes, and societal impacts. The results will be invisible, intangible, mythical, or occult, as befits the purported clandestine nature of the funded activities. The sheer amount of the CFs and IFs will involve a huge network of individuals, the larger the more difficult to exact accountability.
Door 5 refers to the profligacy and impunity that anticipatory deodorant mechanisms will beget. The confidential funds themselves can be used to erase accountability and public perception of impropriety. Worse, they can defeat congressional attempts at oversight and eventually the short arm of the justice system.
These multiple doors to corruption are matched only by the shoddiness with which Congress has approved the P5.3 trillion budget.
https://opinion.inquirer.net/157534/the-five-doors-to-confidential-corruption#ixzz7shczAiNZ
MANILA, Philippines — Senate Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III called on the public to oppose the allocation of hundreds of millions of pesos in confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) to agencies not responsible for national security or law enforcement as the country watches government spending while grappling with a ballooning national debt.
In a radio interview on Saturday, Pimentel said the formation of a Senate oversight committee on CIF cannot justify such funding in the national budget to agencies like the Department of Education (DepEd) that do not have the mandate to conduct surveillance work and intelligence gathering.
Pimentel, with help from fellow opposition Sen. Risa Hontiveros, was hopeful that they would get enough votes from other senators to back his move to delete the proposed confidential funds—mainly the P500 million for the office of Vice President Sara Duterte and the P150 million for DepEd also headed by Duterte.
“We hope (fellow lawmakers will join us), especially once they feel the mounting public pressure that the people are now alarmed why we are giving P500 million in confidential funds for the OVP (Office of Vice President) and another P150 million for the DepEd,” he said.
Pimentel said the ordinary Filipino taxpayers should also question the propriety of appropriating confidential and intelligence funds to agencies with no clear mandate to use them.“This is the time our people should now take part, first by understanding what confidential funds are,” he added.
One of the main features of such funds is that they are not audited in the same transparent way that funds of other agencies are, making them open to misuse, abuse and corruption.
One of the defining features of a patronage society is personal fiefdoms, wherein the public is misappropriated as private. Feudal society was defined by this type of patronage.
The feudal lord would dispense favors, privileges, and property in exchange for loyalty from his vassals and subjects.
In a feudal democracy, this loyalty is expressed as votes.
In contrast, in a genuine democracy, public resources are separated from private property, and the public wherewithal is used for the good of larger society and not treated like someone’s personal piggy bank.
One of the objectives of republican democracy today is to maintain this separation of the public and private.
Our elections turn this defining objective on its head by putting feudal lords in power. It’s destructive to democratic society overall.
A classic example is the Marcos dictatorship, and the 2022 election of Marcos Jr. indicates that the values and attitudes underlying the Philippine polity are still pervasively feudal. Imee Marcos has herself described Ilocos Norte as the Marcos family’s “grand duchy.”
We have to undergo a revolution of values and attitudes in order to attain the many advantages and benefits that we observe and encounter in the postindustrial democracies of the developed world.
We have to profess democratic values and attitudes for Philippine democracy itself to succeed. The Philippine polity has to be democratized.
https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2022/05/feudal-democracy.html
The Philippines is what may be described as a “traditional society” in transition to modernity. In a modern democracy, the values and attitudes are democratic—there is, for example, strong rule of law, belief in enterprise, innovation, and competition, and broad profession of a common ideology of human rights. Social relations in the Philippines and the political power that derives from it are based on kinship relations so that in this respect Philippine society recapitulates defining aspects of European feudalism. The Philippines does not operate like a modern democratic society but rather like a feudal society based on kinship relations. Among others, it is a key reason why Philippine society is corrupt, politically repressive, economically backward, and in science and technology globally uncompetitive. Transformation of attitudes and values in the direction of genuine democracy will result in positive economic repercussions, like what we witnessed, however imperfect, under the second Aquino.
Too often elective office in the Philippines is sought as a means of personal enrichment. That is the reason why we are a poor and undeveloped country. It’s very difficult to work against this systemically characteristic motivation because the power structure in society supports, propagates, and maintains it. The rich require power and therefore seek it, while the powerful pursue riches illicitly obtained. The political support of the poor is necessary for this purpose, so that the manipulation of the poor becomes a necessary tool of illicit enrichment. It’s a vicious circle that is very difficult to break. It can be done but usually with very limited success and partial results. We just have to keep working at it because the alternative is to throw up our hands in despair.
Public domain photo
ReplyDeletePhoto link:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/usdagov/5707778059
Gonzalinho
Highlights between asterisks
ReplyDeleteLEGITIMACY THROUGH ACCOUNTABILITY, GOOD GOV’T
By: Dindo Manhit - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer
November 17, 2022
In July and August this year, PwC Philippines and the Management Association of the Philippines surveyed *119 CEOs* of various corporations in the country, and one of the questions asked was the *top factor they thought would delay Philippine recovery. *
*Sixty-seven percent* of the respondents had *corruption* as their *top answer. *
Other factors like lower investments, political uncertainty, inflation, and rising oil prices were far behind the list.
This sentiment of industry leaders is mirrored by the Stratbase-commissioned Pulse Asia survey conducted between Sept. 17 and 21, 2022, or around the 100th-day mark of the administration of President Marcos Jr.
Respondents were asked to *choose from seven issues that would benefit the most if corruption were controlled. Thirty-six percent* chose *economic recovery and development* as their *top answer. * This was followed by improving the plight of ordinary citizens (22 percent), achieving good governance (11 percent), and efficient and effective delivery of public services (10 percent), among others.
These numbers show how *people are aware of the direct relationship between how the government is run and how the economy performs,* especially in the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis.
The usual notion is that corruption is a political issue, causing headline-grabbing scandals involving personalities being caught. However, this aggregate corruption is a far-reaching economic concern that has real and tangible effects on the way ordinary Filipinos live.
https://opinion.inquirer.net/158791/legitimacy-thru-accountability-good-govt#ixzz7shmTS9o1
We will be forever trapped in a development hole unless the political culture of this country changes.
Too often elective office in the Philippines is sought as a means of personal enrichment. That is the reason why we are a poor and undeveloped country. It’s very difficult to work against this systemically characteristic motivation because the power structure in society supports, propagates, and maintains it. The rich require power and therefore seek it, while the powerful pursue riches illicitly obtained. The political support of the poor is necessary for this purpose, so that the manipulation of the poor becomes a necessary tool of illicit enrichment. It’s a vicious circle that is very difficult to break. It can be done but usually with very limited success and partial results. We just have to keep working at it because the alternative is to throw up our hands in despair.
Gonzalinho
Philippines is not on the radar screen of American businessmen. Vietnam is. The main concern about the Philippines is corruption, not currency valuation or anything else. A comment of American faculty/business council member during Philippine Economics Society conference.
ReplyDeleteEnrico Patiga Villanueva, @EnricoPatiga
Philippine Daily Inquirer
November 12, 2022
Gonzalinho
INTELLIGENCE FUNDS LEGACY OF MARTIAL LAW – HONTIVEROS
ReplyDeleteBy: Melvin Gascon - Correspondent / @melvingasconINQ
Philippine Daily Inquirer
November 29, 2022
The prevailing “culture” in the national government of agencies demanding confidential and intelligence funds (CIF) started during the martial law regime of ousted President Ferdinand Marcos Sr., and now being perpetuated by the administration of his son, opposition Sen. Risa Hontiveros said on Monday.
In a television interview, Hontiveros said Congress should now find ways to stop this “embedded” practice of agencies’ desire to have CIF, even if the use of such funds was not part of their mandate.
“Apparently, this practice of having confidential and intelligence funds, even among civilian agencies, dates back to a particular presidential decree, so this is also one of the legacies of martial law, of the dictatorship, that for me we [in Congress] should revisit,” she said.
Hontiveros issued the statement as members of the House of Representatives and the Senate, sitting as a bicameral conference panel, polished the conflicting provisions in the P5.26-trillion General Appropriations Bill for 2023. A thorny issue in the proposed budget has been the grant of up to P9.3 billion in CIF, including P4.5 billion to the office of President Marcos, P530 million for the two offices held by Vice President Sara Duterte and a number of military, police and civilian agencies.
According to Hontiveros, the Philippines stands out in this practice of granting CIF as this is not practiced in other countries, or not at this “magnitude” in proportion to the entire budget.
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1699019/risa-intelligence-funds-legacy-of-martial-law#ixzz7shkzNF6A
The Marcos legacy is plunder—secondary to gross human rights violations—resulting in appalling economic retardation and underdevelopment.
Gonzalinho
THE CANCER OF PORK BARREL POLITICS
ReplyDeleteBy: Peter Angelo V. Perfecto - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:02 AM November 06, 2025
…As we all know, the national budget is the lifeblood of the government, providing essential funding for various sectors, including education, health care, infrastructure, and social welfare. Unfortunately, this vital resource has been compromised by the insidious influence of pork barrel politics, a system that prioritizes personal and political interests over the needs of the people.
The persistence of pork barrel politics has led to widespread corruption, undermining the integrity of the budget process and hindering the country’s development. You may recall that on Nov. 19, 2013, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional pork barrel allocations called the Priority Development Assistance Fund. Yet, today, PDAF rears its ugly head in three types of pork entrenched in the national budget: soft pork, hard pork, and shadow budget. The consequences of pork barrel politics are far-reaching and devastating. It diverts funds away from essential public services, perpetuates corruption, and erodes trust in government institutions. The people suffer the most, as they are forced to beg for benefits, rather than receive them as a matter of right.
Soft pork refers to programs that provide assistance to individuals or groups, often in the form of cash or services, which can be used as a means of political leverage. The Department of Social Welfare and Development’s Assistance to Individuals in Crisis Situations and the Department of Labor and Employment’s Tulong Panghanapbuhay sa Ating Disadvantaged/Displaced Workers are examples of programs that have been criticized for being vulnerable to the manipulation of politicians. These programs have become tools for politicians to curry favor with their constituents, rather than providing genuine support to those in need.
Hard pork, on the other hand, involves infrastructure projects that are often driven by political considerations rather than genuine development needs. The lack of transparency and accountability in the allocation of funds for infrastructure projects has led to the proliferation of ghost projects, which do nothing to benefit the people.
To be continued
Gonzalinho
Continued
DeleteTHE CANCER OF PORK BARREL POLITICS
By: Peter Angelo V. Perfecto - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:02 AM November 06, 2025
Continued
The shadow budget, fueled by unprogrammed appropriations, operates outside the regular scrutiny of the General Appropriations Act, allowing for unchecked discretion and potential abuse. The lack of transparency and accountability in the use of these funds has led to allegations of corruption and abuse. The Supreme Court warned against the dangers of unprogrammed appropriations, stating that revenue targets should not be used to justify artificial surpluses.
…Ken Abante [of the People’s Budget Coalition and the Roundtable for Inclusive Development or RFID] explained that the Senate can set the standard for evidence-based, transparent, and participatory budgeting. By opening hearings, disclosing fund releases, and institutionalizing citizen participation, it can rebuild the nation’s immune system. Specific recommendations welcomed by the committee chair were made.
The government must prioritize transparency, accountability, and citizen participation in the budget process. This can be achieved by transforming P256+ billion in pork and patronage-based programs that are vulnerable to political capture into rules-based, rights-based initiatives. It should ensure that infrastructure projects are driven by genuine development needs, rather than political considerations. It must remove the whole P243 billion unprogrammed appropriations, which has been used as a shadow budget to fund projects like flood control.
The government must also take concrete steps to ensure that those who engage in corruption are held accountable. Failing to do so continues to make corruption low risk and high return. Finally, government must open the budget bicameral committee, treat civil society observers as resource persons, not just as token observers, and create with them an open budget transparency server that media and civil society can mirror.
-----
Peter Angelo V. Perfecto was the former executive director of Makati Business Club.
https://opinion.inquirer.net/187258/the-cancer-of-pork-barrel-politics
The pork barrel—item appropriations in the national budget that allow politicians to control the dispensation of funds and thereby pocket their own covert portion of the disbursements—is one major avenue of plunder in the Philippine government, but it is not the only one. The legislature is the principal culprit, in collusion with the government on the national and local levels.
Corruption and plunder in the Philippine government is a systemic and structural problem, so that it requires correspondingly systemic and structural solutions.
Gonzalinho
CURING OUR CANCER OF CORRUPTION
ReplyDeleteBy: Cielito F. Habito - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:35 AM November 25, 2025
…At a Senate finance committee hearing a few weeks ago, young data analysts and policy researchers Adolfo Jose “AJ” Montesa and Kenneth Isaiah “Ken” Abante similarly likened the corruption crisis underlying the flood control scandal to a spreading cancer. There are three tumors, they said, in our country’s raging cancer today: “soft pork” in P156 billion of “ayuda” programs that make citizens beg for basic rights; “hard pork” in corruption-laden infrastructure projects, including P653 billion in unaccounted flood control funds; and a “shadow budget” of P1.1 trillion in unprogrammed appropriations released through unverifiable “excess revenues,” enabling what they call “spending in the dark.”
…Thankfully, Senate finance committee chair Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian has not only been receptive but has also welcomed and invited the well-researched and thoroughly analyzed inputs from the groups behind Montesa and Abante. These include a horde of self-described “angry nerds” scattered here and overseas, reportedly numbering in the thousands, who are doing painstaking scrutiny of detailed data on budget allocation, disbursement, and execution. I have seen some products of their work, and they are truly impressive, thorough, and revealing. Key to it all is budget transparency, and so far, Gatchalian’s committee has readily shared with Montesa, Abante, and their thousands of “angry nerds” detailed data in machine-readable format, making it much easier to do elaborate data analytics—or what my old econometrics professor used to call “torturing the data until it confesses.” With what they are unearthing, the data are indeed “confessing” massive irregularities, and we’ve only seen the proverbial tip of the iceberg, we’re told. With large numbers of young techies now ferreting out the truth, it’s incumbent on the government to bring all offenders to justice.
https://opinion.inquirer.net/187758/curing-our-cancer-of-corruption
However grounded and sincere, energetic moral exhortations by religious, political, and other leaders in Philippine society are not enough to check corruption, because words by themselves do not coerce and they fail to compel.
Corruption and plunder in the Philippine government is a systemic and structural problem, so that it requires correspondingly systemic and structural solutions.
Gonzalinho
BUSINESS LEADERS SPEAK OUT AS CORRUPTION CRIPPLES THE ECONOMY
ReplyDeletePhilippine Daily Inquirer / 05:05 AM November 26, 2025
…Look at Singapore, where the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau operates independently and can initiate investigations without waiting for complaints. Its laws presume guilt for unexplained wealth—shifting the burden of proof to the accused. Indonesia’s Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi pioneered anticorruption courts and whistleblower protections, while Malaysia’s Association of Corporate Counsel uses blockchain and artificial intelligence to monitor financial flows, leading to high-profile arrests and improved public trust.
Article continues after this advertisement
The Philippines must follow suit. Build an accountability ecosystem—a coordinated strategy that treats corruption as a structural market failure.
Start with radical transparency: require beneficial ownership disclosure for government contractors and repeal the bank secrecy law, which shields illicit wealth.
Invest in institutional capacity. Quadruple the budget of the Office of the Ombudsman and double that of the Sandiganbayan. These agencies are tasked with prosecuting high-level graft but operate with budgets that wouldn’t cover a mid-sized compliance department.
Prevention is equally critical. A well-resourced Commission on Elections can vet candidates before they enter office. A modernized Commission on Audit can use data analytics to flag fraud before it happens, while a stronger Civil Service Commission can professionalize the bureaucracy, reducing petty corruption and improving service delivery.
The return on investment from a functioning accountability system is immense—not just in saved public funds, but in a more stable, predictable business environment.
MANNY ILAO,
manny.ilao@yahoo.com
https://opinion.inquirer.net/187779/business-leaders-speak-out-as-corruption-cripples-the-economy
However grounded and sincere, energetic moral exhortations by religious, political, and other leaders in Philippine society are not enough to check corruption, because words by themselves do not coerce, and they fail to compel.
Corruption and plunder in the Philippine government is a systemic and structural problem, so that it requires correspondingly systemic and structural solutions.
“Build an accountability ecosystem”—on the right track.
Gonzalinho
DPWH ENGINEERS GIVEN ‘TOO MUCH POWER’
ReplyDeleteBy: Kathleen de Villa, Zacarian Sarao - @inquirerdotnet
INQUIRER.net, Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:55 AM December 03, 2025
District engineers of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) were given “too much power” and control over how much and when public funds are released to contractors or implementers of infrastructure projects.
The head of the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI) [Andres Reyes Jr.] put this observation on record during the fact-finding body’s first livestreamed hearing on Tuesday, saying it was a systemic loophole that apparently allowed kickback schemes to go unchecked.
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/2149888/dpwh-district-engineers-given-too-much-power
Corruption and plunder in the Philippine government is a systemic and structural problem, so that it requires correspondingly systemic and structural solutions.
Gonzalinho
THE WAR ON CORRUPTION
ReplyDeleteBy: Apa Ongpin - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:10 AM January 01, 2026
…Evolving patronage politics to a more merit- and performance-based model is crucial, because patronage politics is simply a dysfunctional way to run a country. Public funds, which should be spent for economic development, including agricultural development, poverty eradication, social welfare programs, education, and relevant infrastructure are plundered, diverted, or leveraged by political actors (including dynasties), to ensure their reelection, as well as enrich themselves.
This has traditionally been done by “hijacking” the national budget. In the past, the “pork barrel” system was used, wherein representatives in Congress and the Senate, as well as local government officials, would get large, lump sum allocations for usually vague programs, to be disbursed on a discretionary basis.
This was declared illegal by the Supreme Court in 2013, but the practice has continued, under other names and workarounds. Officials have inserted programs and projects designed to be plundered, such as the notorious overpriced or even “ghost” flood control projects.
Some of these are inserted as “unprogrammed” funds, meaning they can be spent if the government achieves revenue collections in excess of targets, creates new revenue sources, or is able to get loans (primarily from multilateral agencies) or underspends or realizes savings on regular appropriations.
…When the corruption crisis exploded, the MBC said that since corruption is systemic, we need to fight it systematically. This meant a long-term and difficult struggle to reform the system. No instant gratification, unfortunately.
Many civil society and private sector groups, i.e., the middle classes, remain focused on demanding that the guilty be punished, in particular that “big fish” should be arrested and convicted, and they want it now. They say, with some justification, that if we let these criminals get away with it, they will do it again—and they have. But the sad reality is, due process takes time. No one is going to be convicted this year.
Meanwhile, the mass voter base has demonstrated that they care less about corruption than about personality, having reelected several different politicians who have previously been convicted or accused of plunder.
This is one of the fundamental quandaries of democracy, faced by many societies, even some developed ones.
To be continued
Gonzalinho
THE WAR ON CORRUPTION
DeleteBy: Apa Ongpin - @inquirerdotnet
Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:10 AM January 01, 2026
Continued
The MBC, while it agrees that those guilty should be punished, has focused its efforts to prevent future corruption, in particular, a hijacking of the 2026 national budget. Yes, the same officials are trying again.
As part of the People’s Budget Coalition, the MBC has joined the Catholic Church, academe, other business and civil society groups, and several former government officials, in auditing and questioning the 2026 budget. We have allied and collaborated with key members, mostly in the progressive blocs of the Senate and House of Representatives, to intervene in the formulation of the budget, especially by blocking suspicious insertions and unprogrammed funds.
We continue to hope that our efforts in exposing these conspiracies to defraud the public will result in a cleaner and better 2026 budget, more focused on development. No budget will be perfect, but we believe we can get one significantly better than those of the last decade or so, which had hundreds of billions of pesos in corruption built in to them from the start.
Once we have an acceptable budget, we will need to continue our work on development initiatives. Better governance remains one of those important initiatives. Convincing voters to elect officials with more integrity, and especially, to reject dysfunctional and exploitative political dynasties, is a different but allied task that will take potentially decades. That war must be fought, and we will fight it.
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Apa Ongpin is the executive director of Makati Business Club.
https://opinion.inquirer.net/188652/the-war-on-corruption
Corruption and plunder in the Philippine government is a systemic and structural problem, so that it requires correspondingly systemic and structural solutions.
Gonzalinho