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Little G and Big O

April 15, 2009 By Manuel Buencamino 7 Comments
    Little G and Big O
    Didpatches from the Enchanted KIngdom

    ‘If you think that the Arroyo administration has been insincere in its fight against graft and corruption, take note: Records would show that this administration has the most number of anticorruption initiatives that this country has ever seen before, during and after the Marcos regime,” wrote Press Secretary Cerge Remonde in a March edition of his weekly column.

    I checked out Remonde’s claims by time traveling through Arroyo’s campaign against graft and corruption.

    It’s July 23, 2001. Gloria Arroyo is delivering her first State of the Nation Address….

    “To reduce corruption in the Executive branch, Cabinet secretaries will have to deliver tangible results within 12 months in fighting graft…. And I gave the reinforced Presidential Antigraft Commission added teeth to investigate and prosecute moto propio corruption in high places….

    “To reduce corruption among elective officials, we will help honest people get elected by financing the full computerization of elections…. Let us make the polls of May 14, 2001, the last national elections that use primitive methods of voter identification and ballot tabulation.”

    It’s July 1, 2003. Presidential spokesman Ignacio R. Bunye is already reminding the public…

    “From Day One of her administration, the President has come out strongly against corruption in government.”

    It’s January 13, 2005. Gloria is addressing the 60th anniversary celebration of the Manila Overseas Press Club….

    “I will exert executive authority to fire unscrupulous government officials who rob the nation.”

    She announces the appointment of Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Merceditas Gutierrez as her new “anti-
    corruption czar” and the hiring of more investigators by the Presidential Antigraft Commission.

    It’s April 12, 2007. It’s three days after Gloria’s husband underwent a heart by-pass operation and one week before she left for Boao, China, to witness the signing of the $329-million national broadband network-Zhong Xing Telecommunication Equipment Co. (NBN-ZTE) deal….

    Gloria revives the Committee of Peers—“a three-man panel composed of Cabinet officials that would investigate allegations and charges against their colleagues and make recommendations to her”—and appoints Romulo Neri, the reluctant witness in the NBN-ZTE scandal, as committee member. Chutzpah comes to mind, but I’ll settle for ironic.

    And so here I am, April 13, 2009, reading a four-month-old story about Oprah Winfrey falling off the fat wagon again….

    “I’m embarrassed…I can’t believe that after all these years, all the things I know how to do, I’m still talking about my weight. I look at my thinner self and think, ‘How did I let this happen again?’”

    In 1991, back to 14-and-over dress size, a mere three years after she had slimmed down to a size 10, Oprah revealed she had been battling fat for over 30 years.

    “I’ve been dieting since 1977, and the reason I failed is that diets don’t work. I tell people, if you’re underweight, go on a diet and you’ll gain everything you lost plus more. Now I’m trying to find a way to live in a world with food without being controlled by it, without being a compulsive eater. That’s why I say I will never diet again.”

    It looks like “never” doesn’t last forever for Oprah, because she’s been on and off the fat wagon since she uttered those famous last words.

    Listening to Oprah say she will lose weight and stay slim is like this administration saying it will stop stealing and stay clean. You know it’s just addicts talking—Oprah to overeating and this regime to thieving.

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Comments

  1. baycas says:
    April 15, 2009 at 12:05 pm

    Good morning.

    This fight against corruption is one of the principal thrusts of the government. Indeed, one might say, fate has thrust such a goal upon me.

    My late father President Diosdado Macapagal was known as the incorruptible, and I must continue the work he started decades ago. Also, Edsa 2 which catapulted me into this office was all about People Power against corruption, a historic fight against graft in the highest levels of government. I cannot but follow this Edsa spirit, this courage and determination to fight corruption.

    We do not have to go over statistics on how huge a problem corruption is for our country. Some say it has pervaded every nook and cranny of our bureaucracy, so much so that it eats up a big chunk of taxpayers’ money and businessmen’s expenses.

    Many adult Filipinos have, sometime in their lives, an actual encounter with corruption. The tong for some real or fabricated traffic violation. The fee for the swift issuance of a document for an importation or a business permit. The 10 percent or even more paid for a government contract. Protection money for illegal numbers games.

    Corruption is one of the major obstacles to reducing poverty, the overarching goal of my administration. It reduces government resources for alleviating the plight of the poor, and instead finances the luxuries of an unscrupulous rich. Because it is an additional cost to business, it not only weakens our companies’ competitiveness. It even makes goods and services the poor need more expensive.

    As soon as I took over, I launched this fight against corruption — starting with my family and top officials. I issued a proclamation prohibiting agencies of the government from doing business with my kin. I have no cronies or drinking buddies. Malacanang’s transactions are transparent.

    I instructed my entire government to formulate and institute anti-corruption mechanisms, among them the setting up of an open, internet-based procurement system for government supplies and the reduction of signatures in regulatory activities, which have been a fertile field for graft.

    But this is only the start. I am instructing the new PAGC Chairman Rama to submit in a month’s time the commission’s concrete program to fight graft and corruption. The same instruction is for Commissioner Bernardo for the Bureau of Customs. Commissioner Bañez submitted his program long ago, and has been carrying it out, resulting in achieving internal revenue collections higher than target, as acknowledged by the international credit risk agencies that have upgraded the Philippines’ rating. I congratulate him and urge him to continue his work, which, impressive as it is so far, still has additional potential for optimization.

    We need not just studies, but actual results. Corrupt officials must be identified, then immediately suspended, and charges filed in court. I need results in a few months’ time. Our people are even clamoring that we have to catch big fish.

    Corruption is so clearly a problem that ordinary citizens and even students have organized NGO’s to fight corruption. Representative of one such NGO — cleverly named “walang ku-corrupt” — are with us today. I applaud their efforts. It is not only civil servants who have the duty to fight corruption. It is the duty of all our citizens. The help they extend to our officials and agencies fighting corruption will be invaluable.

    I want our government to be remembered as a successful anti-graft administration. And I expect the PAGC to be at the vanguard of such a war on corruption, and the bureau of customs and the Bureau of Internal Revenue as shining models for victory against graft.

    Our nation has tarried so long in taking on this bull of corruption by its horns. Let us clean up government once and for all. We owe this to the future of our children. Tungkulin natin ito sa dakilang manggagawang Pilipino.

    Thank you.

    PGMA’s Speech during the oathtaking ceremonies with Presidential Anti-Graft Corruption Chairman Dario Rama and Bureau of Customs Commissioner Antonio Bernardo
    Monday, March 18, 2002
    Reception Hall, Malacañang

    —–

    Our nation has tarried so long in taking on this bull of corruption by its horns. Let us clean up government once and for all. We owe this to the future of our children.

    …and now, once again, we hear of possible anomaly:

    Overpriced DepEd noodles (given to preschoolers and Grade 1 pupils of public schools)…

    Reply
  2. baycas says:
    April 15, 2009 at 12:09 pm

    Thank you.
    PGMA’s Speech, March 18, 2002
    Reception Hall, Malacañang

    Our nation has tarried so long in taking on this bull of corruption by its horns. Let us clean up government once and for all. We owe this to the future of our children.

    …and now, once again, we hear of possible anomaly:

    Overpriced DepEd noodles (given to preschoolers and Grade 1 pupils of public schools)…

    Reply
  3. Manuel Buencamino manuelbuencamino says:
    April 15, 2009 at 12:29 pm

    baycas,

    Re: your bull’s-eye quotation.

    I noticed that she mistakes herself for the nation.

    Reply
  4. Danilo says:
    April 15, 2009 at 3:20 pm

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC4aGgN88Ug

    GUSTO KONG BUMAIT PERO DI KO MAGAWA(3x)
    NASA DIYOS ANG AWA NASA TAO ANG GAWA.

    ….

    O TUKSO LAYUAN MO AKO KAPAG NANDYAN KA AKO’Y
    NAUUTO MO,TINURO MONG LAHAT NG BAWAL AY MASARAP
    MALI TO KAYAT AKO NGAYO’Y HIRAP NA HIRAP.
    (chorus)

    …tayo’y bakit,bakit,bakit…
    di natin gawin
    dahil sa ating kagustuhan
    mga kapatid
    sya naman ang pagbigyan.
    (chorus)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7z306neJqBI

    GOTCHA!

    Reply
  5. tasio says:
    April 15, 2009 at 8:29 pm

    Graft and corruption are entwined with Filipino politics. We vote one
    President in office with high hopes. He or she turns out the same. We
    throw one President out by EDSAs. Put another one. He or she turns
    out the same.

    It is always a vicious cycle. I have no easy answers. I dont know the
    causes. I dont understand the phenomenom itself.

    Reply
  6. Dean Jorge Bocobo says:
    April 15, 2009 at 9:00 pm

    The Office of the Ombudsman was created by the 1987 Constitution specifically to address corruption in government. Since it does not look very likely that we shall have another People Power Coup d’etat against PGMA, we must resign ourselves to doing Justice the hard way. First the Ombudswoman Merci Gutierrez must be impeached and removed from office. The next President ought to campaign with an “Impeachment Bloc coalition” to gain an absolute one third minority force in the House and 2/3 in the Senate so that this goal may be accomplished. That is the only way we can turn this always futile cry and handwringing over Graft and Corruption into a phrase the runs more trippingly along the tongue: Crime and Punishment!

    Reply

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