We are in the clutches of a sweltering summer helped along by the El Nino phenomenon but Gloria Macapagal Arroyo may have  just opened the faucet, the corruption faucet that is.

Thanks to the incompetence-induced Mindanao power crisis, Mrs. Arroyo (whose Lakas-Kampi-CMD combine reputedly controls at least 80 percent of all local government units) issued this message as the weekened began:

The LGUs (local government units) can use five percent of their budget for calamity where they choose to spend it because they have local autonomy.

The one that’s not allowed during the [Comelec] ban is awarding contracts,

The gensets will be the private sector…. In my instructions, aside from the private sector importing gensets, they’re going to rent; they’re going to lease.

Claro que si?

Armed with this presidential wink, it’s now open season for such calamity fund to be siphoned off by ‘creative’ and unscrupulous Arroyo party mates to ease their personal campaign-related ‘financial calamities’.

Her hot-head and imperious Energy Secretary, Angelo Reyes, has said that the calamity funds totaling some P 5.5 billion will be used to procure generators.

Malacanang insists the suspicions are misplaced because the Commission on Audit will guard against the diversion and misuse of the calamity funds.

But there’s a fine print to that: COA is no longer allowed to undertake pre-audits!!!

Oh the needed emergency gensets will be bought alright.

But with the legally-mandated public bidding procedures suspended because of the calamity, the acquisition prices can be generously padded with the SOPs (under the table commission)having the suppliers and their political cohorts laughing all the way to the bank!!!

NOTE:

The authoritative publication MindaNews chronicled how energy authorities had long foreseen the power crisis but ignored it:

http://www.mindanews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7727

As the controversy-riddled rule of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo winds down, corruption in sensitive and revenue generating agencies of government is the badge of dishonour.

As Dr. Mahar Mangahas of  the Social Weather station reports:

The annual proportion of managers seeing “a lot” of corruption in the public sector has been steady at two-thirds since 2005. Almost all of them see it happening in the national level; progressively fewer see it at the provincial, city and barangay levels. The median reported provision for bribery in a government contract continues to be 20 percent.

The annual proportion seeing “a lot” of corruption in the private sector, also flat since 2005, has been at one-fourth. The median reported provision for bribery in a private contract continues to be 10 percent.

The proportion of managers whose companies were solicited for a bribe by someone in government in the past year was 61 percent—below the 2008 peak of 70 percent, but still the second highest rate since 2005.

On the other hand, half of the managers say there has been improvement in the transparency of the process of bidding for a government contract.

Managers’ assessments of government sincerity in fighting corruption depend on the agency the survey asks about; here I list the agencies from highest to lowest. The Supreme Court, Social Security System, Department of Trade and Industry, Department of Health and city governments have kept their grades of “good” (defined by SWS as Net Sincerity of +30 to +49). Trial courts and the Armed Forces of the Philippines have risen to “moderate” (+10 to +29) in 2009 from “neutral” (-9 to +9) in 2008.
Agencies graded “neutral” in 2009 are the Sandiganbayan, Commission on Audit (down from “moderate” in 2008), Department of Education, Senate, Department of Finance (“moderate” in 2008), Department of Justice (up from “poor,” or within -10 to -29, in 2007-2008), Commission on Elections (up from “poor” in 2008 and from “bad,” or within -30 to -49, in 2007), and the Ombudsman.

Agencies graded “poor” in 2009 are the Department of Budget and Management (down from “neutral”), Philippine National Police, Department of Agriculture, Department of the Interior and Local Government, and the Presidential Commission on Good Government (up from “bad” in 2008).

Agencies graded “bad” in 2009 are the Department of Transportation and Communications (formerly “poor”), Presidential Anti-Graft Commission (“poor” in 2008, “neutral” in 2007), Department of Environment and Natural Resources (formerly “poor”), House of Representatives, Office of the President (“poor” in 2008, “neutral” in 2007), and Land Transportation Office.

The agencies graded “very bad” (-50 or worse) in 2009 are, as in earlier years, the Bureau of Internal Revenue, Department of Public Works and Highways, and Bureau of Customs.

http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20100219-254230/The-new-SWS-corruption-surveys

http://www.sws.org.ph/

Charts 3 and 4 of the SWS study note a decline is the bribe-taking experienced by businesses but a close reading of the chart by even a layman reveals the pervasiveness of corruptions.

While corruption is certainly not the personal preserve of the Arroyo regime, the fact that she has been unable to significantly mitigate it speaks volumes about her nearly decade long hold on power.

And the lady, through her congressional lackeys, even wants to be installed as s Speaker.

The gall!!!

Take note for example the parallel in how easily the Nazis were de-Nazified and returned to business as usual in Germany and in how discretely the Marcos loyalists were de-Marcosified and allowed to restore themselves to their pre-EDSA statuses (think of Danding who fled with the dictator to exile and Marcos crony Lucio Tan who today are both kingmakers again).

There are others, Manolo Quezon reminds us, who have as quietly reinvented (or recycled) themselves: the Aguilars (and Villars), the Estradas, the Teodoros, the Gordons, and the Escuderos, the Angaras, the Punos, the Cayetanos, to name a few more.

By some stretch, the Yellow Revolution was a sequel to the revolutionary narrative of the Filipinos’ long struggle against oppression by foreign tormentors (or its many current forms) except that the focus then was the fight against the abuses of a locally grown tyrant.

On the other hand, it is painful to imagine how by another twist of fortune some heroes of the EDSA uprising (my mentors, Jojo Binay and Rene Saguisag, come to mind) have seemed to have forgotten about (or abandoned?) the project of ’86.

How could we ever gainsay or minimize the evil of the Marcos regime?

Yet, we have seen how an unlikely copycat, at least at her inauguration to power, has sought to revive the specter of the ignominious era in a variety of sinister plots or designs: making a travesty of the check and balance mechanism such as the impeachment process and legislative oversight, militarizing the executive agency, “packing” the Supreme Court and the COMELEC, and, of course, the constant fiddling with the Cha-cha nuclear option. Of late, even without martial law being declared, we have witnessed the case of 43 “health workers” arrested en masse, held incommunicado and possibly tortured.

Thus, trust in the legitimacy of our fundamental institutions is at a dangerously low point. Our society is in a crisis of trust.

How can the people’s faith be regained? How can we reclaim our basic decency? How can Filipinos be motivated to comply with the minimum prerequisites of a good society?

We have seen repeated accounts of how money and votes are interwoven into the numbers game and technical legalisms; whoever has the most of them is set to gain power. But how can the winner command fealty from the governed based on principles if he or she embodies the absence of moral compass by which to lead? Without value-commitments, such a leader will only recreate the vicious cycle of a dysfunctional society. Yet, the inviolate principles are too universal, too commonsensical, too motherhood to be overlooked: integrity, honesty, fairness and, again, trust.

Truly, we can surmise that one possible route out of this rot is by way of example of authentic leaders, not the exceedingly clever, the most photogenic or the greatest in forensics.

On the other hand, there are various democratic avenues that may be taken to address our dilemma. The formal exercise of sovereign will is one. But if this too turns awry as when the steering media debauches it and deepens the crisis of trust, going back to old-fashioned democracy is a coterminous option. Geography is not even a valid excuse for those who have access to the magic of modern technology. Yes, reasoned discourse among the various sectors of our community with a view to reaching a common understanding offers one of the best hopes for our democracy – at least for now.

In such regard, disagreements and differing views even on core issues are to be expected in the dialogue but we must guard the process against sheer pettiness and corruption at all cost.

As part of this discourse, we ask one question of relevance: Is there an earnest effort from those in position of power to grow the economy so that ordinary people are afforded the opportunity for self-fulfillment or make the state respond to the people’s interests rather than the usual suspect, the special and vested interests?

Concerning now the presidential elections scheduled for the May 2010, we likewise ask these questions: Who among the candidates is the fair personification of the vision being suggested: inclusion, consultation, transparency, participation? Who is promising to exact accountability instead of impunity? Who demands almost innocently that we follow the True North of the moral compass – kung ano ang tama?

Lest we forget, it’s well to note that the political exercise is not just about those who aspire to lead. It is also about the community writ large, us.

Are we up to the challenge of self-empowerment? Or are we ready to re-live the spirit of ’86 and say: Never again?

Among the kleptocratic absurdities inflicted in 2009 one that elicited the most responses was the existence of a corruption cartel involving our highest officials, their relatives and “relevant local media” as described by the World Bank’s Department of Institutional Integrity. Karl Garcia recalled in particular a judicial decision that unintentionally predicates perpetuation, providing as it does virtual insulation from anti-corruption and overpricing controls.

The decision rendered in the bellwether case of Abaya versus Ebdane where a petition for certiorari and prohibition to nullify a May 27, 2004 resolution issued by the Bids and Action Committee of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) had quietly set precedents of far-reaching consequences. The resolution recommended awarding to a Chinese state corporation the rehabilitation of a 79.82 kilometer road in Catanduanes.

The approved budget for the contract was Php 738,710,563.67. The bid awarded was Php 952,564,821.71 or 26% higher than the budget. The petition considered the resolution in violation of Section 31 of Republic Act 9184 that set ceiling prices for bids.

The petition for nullification was however dismissed following the brocard of pacta sunt servanda in international law that specifically states within Section 4 of RA 9184 that “any treaty or international or executive agreement affecting the subject matter of this Act to which the Philippine government is a signatory, shall be observed”.

In this case, the creditor, the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) was considered an adjunct of the Japanese government. The loan between the DPWH and JBIC fell under Section 4 of RA 9184, thus overshadowing budgetary parameters set in Section 31.

Following the liberalism effectively supplied, had the folks behind the North Rail project and the notorious ZTE broadband band fiasco (NBN-ZTE) concocted similarly capitalized deals then jurisprudence might underlie fudges beyond budget limits.

Some view law as a manner to control against wrongs. Others see it as a license. Where overpricing and fudges are concerned, this decision differentiates between infrastructure projects funded by private debt against those coursed through executive agreements and treaties where “agreements must be kept” regardless of budget parameters.

Infrastructure projects funded through the Samurai bond route, Official Development Assistance (ODA) for as long as these do not involve state adjuncts, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Asian Development Bank and the general banking system fall under the first category.

Banker’s prudence necessitates the chemistry of cost and capacity to repay. These are checked and balanced, and are scrutinized as to viabilities and repayment – the latter, a function of state revenues and economic wherewithal.

Controls are provided by budgetary boundaries, requisite limits on spending and repayments as well as parameters on what can and cannot be burdened on an already financially-wrung, thoroughly taxed and systemically-squeezed public.

Within the second category of executive agreements and treaties, funding fudges are effectively limitless. The consequences of the differences, similarly infinite. Costs can escalate beyond requisites and economic realities. The public burdened immeasurably, their backs broken by debt.

While the courts are innocent of fudging folly, the consequences of innocence may not be blameless where we might be victimized by infrastructure projects overpriced beyond our economic capacities to repay. Projects such as the ZTE NBN deal, tucked and snuck under the legally hairy armpits of an executive agreement are allowed vast parameters under Section 4 of RA 9184.

In the ZTE NBN project, the U.S.-based Arescom contractor proposed US$ 135 million, Amsterdam Holdings proposed US$ 240 million under a build, operate and transfer scheme, while the ZTE proposal was for US$ 329.5 million under a straight debt financing plan.

For the US$ 530 million North Rail project, the original debt was designed for a complete cargo and commuter transport system. It was eventually for a shorter narrow-gauge commuter railway whose total 64 kilometer project was deemed overpriced by US$ 15 million relative to a 2,000 kilometer railway system in China that had cost only US$ 1.8 million per kilometer.

The “Executive” character of these deals is at the center of the logic in granting immunity from limitations on cost and repayments. That is likewise the reason for these fiascos as constants in the periodic impeachment complaints arrayed against Gloria Arroyo.

But should treaties and executive agreements be above public interest where these unnecessarily burden?

Senator Richard Gordon recently said that from one-third to a half of public works funds are lost through inefficiencies and corruption. Should treaties and executive agreements be the default development route, that estimate may be on the low side.

Transparency International ranked the Philippines number 139 on its Corruption Perception Index.

As a corollary take a look at this screenshot I took of the Global Competitive Report 2009-2010:

Global Competitive Report Philippines 2009-2010

The next administration must focus on Corruption. That everything else must take a back seat. Education. Health Care. and anything else you can think about must play second fiddle to fighting and defeating Corruption. That everything the next administration must handle, at its core ought to be about fighting corruption no matter how indirect it is. The Philippines’ knack for pulling self out of the brink may run out. If the next administration somehow misses the boat to fix Corruption at this juncture, it is not inconceivable to find the Philippines in a much deeper spot than it already is. This is the challenge of the next president of the Philippines.

* * *
my thanks to @Solstitial for transparency international link.

The weekend came and went almost uneventfully with coffee and barbershop talk of your everyday Pinoy scene watchers-cum-pundits-cum- doom-and-naysayers preoccupied with either the latest video sex scandals or their bets in the coming elections.

So it was that the death of former NBI deputy chief Samuel Ong went largely unnoticed except by Filipinos more concerned about how the truth about scams and scandal involving the government of the day has been suppressed.

Samuel Ong was the moral giant who dared try to speak out about the infamous ‘Hello Garci’ recordings.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view/20090522-206570/Hello-Garci-whistleblower-dies-64

Malacanang is, of course, pooh-pooing as “old hat and worthless” any renewed questions about Hello Garci and how it pointed to massive fraud in the 2004 elections.

As if public anger as no value, two individuals who’ve hugged the headlines over their alleged intimate involvement in scams: former elections commissioner Virgilio Garcillano and ex agriculture undersecretary Jocelyn ‘Joc Joc Bolante have both announced electoral bids!

But electoral fraud and its big brother, corruption, can never be waved away.

http://report.globalintegrity.org/Philippines/2008/scorecard/2

The global report of Transparency International for 2008 points to how the Philippine is woefully ranked at a near basement level 141st place among countries will a dismal corruption index, placing it in a tie with Iran and Yemen!

WTF has really happened to us?

Between the Philippines being rated second behind Sudan as having the most number of internal refugees with 600,000 Filipinos displaced by civil war, and being tagged as most corrupt in Asia and 141st globally, whoever succeeds Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to Malacanang will really have its hands full restoring faith in the integrity of public institutions with Filipinos in and out of government doing their bit to minimize if not eliminate corruption,

http://midfield.wordpress.com/2009/05/05/philippines-second-to-sudan-in-number-of-internal-refugees/

The next administration will have a fresh mandate to put our situation aright but will it have the political will and moral courage to go after those who committed high crimes while in office?

Is it that hard?

That’s a question I credit to commenter BongV who asks in a recent comment:

For example, corruption. How hard is it not to have personal responsibility for not committing corruption? Is it really that hard?

Another example, choice. How hard is it to select a competent forward looking candidate? Is it really that hard? If one is saying , yes, it’s that hard? I ask has the gene pool suddenly become bankrupt that pinoys have no other choice but to vote for the same political families – Roxas, Araneta, Gordon, Santiago… Are these the only family names that have a brain between the ears in the Philippines? I find that hard to believe and yet, the Senate and the House of Representatives are filled with the same old family names – new faces, same old scripts.

Ganun na ba karetarded ang talent pool ng Pilipinas? Is this hard to answer?

Really. Is it that hard?

One of the things I don’t understand is the sheer amount of energy expended by the “intelligentsia” on micro-analysing and micro-speculating on the minutiae of the suspect motives, suspect sentiments, suspect decisions, and suspect actions of the who’s-who of Philippine political circuses. In the middle of all this is The Media and other brokers of information such as the Social Weather Stations. These elements are always wont to swoop into any fray to lap up little factoids for re-packaged profitable re-distribution to those lower down in the food chain. That’s what they do, because that’s what they are, and they are laughing all the way to the bank each time.

There’s also quite a few laughs to be gained by sitting back and watching what are supposedly the most “intelligent” of consumers of the information brokered by those business entitites clumping around to feast upon their products like ravenous pigeons milling around a handful of breadcrumbs thrown out by a passerby.

Maybe that’s what makes it so hard. Too much focus on the narrow channel of awareness created by an “intelligentsia” with too much dubious “expertise” for their own good — much the same as how a lawyer could know The Law down to the letter and still not get the spirit behind it; and much more famously, how a bunch of be-credentialled Ivy-League-educated MBAs and “economists” could run entire economies aground with their misguided “analyses” and “forecasts”.

Yes. It’s too hard when you are up to your nose in the very same horsemanure that one prides one’s self in being so proficient at scrutinising.

I recently took one of those mandatory Fraud/Security courses that are prescribed to us annually here. One of the principles that was emphasised was this:

Honest people generally fail to suspect fraudulent activity going on around them.

In other words, it takes one to know one.

So in considering this, we now get a bit more light shed on the predisposition of Filipinos to regard one another (whether it be their intentions or actions) with suspicion, as if to validate that we are indeed a people imprisoned by our culture of crime.

As the esteemed Jaime Licauco wrote back in 2001…

A nation whose policies and rules are based on the assumption that everybody is a cheat and liar unless proven otherwise cannot long endure. Take a close look at our bureaucracy and its rules. It is burdened by elaborate and often unnecessary checks and balances so that nothing ever gets done in the process.

…an elegant observation I cite in, where else, a piece I once wrote on the root of all corruption.

Indeed, in fairness to Filipinos it may be in fact too hard — too hard to be honest, and too hard to expect honesty in one another.

And saddest of all: Too hard to achieve and succeed.

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Senator Chiz Escudero today said the Senate need not wait anymore for the World Bank to officially release its report on bid rigging in a multi-million dollar road project as the upper chamber can obtain it directly from the three Filipino contractors allegedly involved in the collusion.

Escudero said World Bank officials in Washington told him that the report given to the contractors is more detailed than what was released to the Department of Finance.

The senator said he will ask the Committee on Economic Affairs, when it resumes the probe on Thursday, to subpoena these documents from E.C. De Luna Construction Corp., Cavite Ideal International Construction and Development Corp. and the CM Pancho Construction Inc. – all three were named and banned by the World Bank from participating in its future projects because of the alleged bid rigging.

“The World Bank officials confirmed to me that prior to the banning of these contractors, they were each given a detailed list of allegations and accusations. Everything is there,” he said in a press conference a day after he arrived from a week-long visit in Washington.

Escudero met with three World Bank officials in Washington last week where he made a direct appeal in his capacity as a member of the Philippine Senate for the bank to release an official copy to the upper chamber.

“I told them that it is a matter of public interest to the Filipino people. If their counterpart which is the finance department sat on their job and did nothing about their recommendation, I told them to give the Senate the benefit of doing something about it. Why insist on dealing only with the same agency that is responsible for the corruption?”

Escudero said of his meeting with Shaun Moss, Regional Procurement Manager for East Asia and the Pacific, Ben Gericke, Senior Transport Engineer and Steve Charles Burgess, Senior Operations Officer.

The World Bank’s Department of Institutional Integrity said it gave Department of Finance a copy of the report in November 2007.

He said the Bank officials told him that the contractors were given in May 2008 a notice of sanctions proceedings which cited all of their alleged wrongdoing. They were given 90 days to respond in their defense, but all three failed to respond to the allegations, said Escudero.

“It’s simple logic, if one accuses you of being a thief and you know very well it’s not true, won’t you defend yourself and your honor? Why the silence from these contractors?” he asked.

1. Should we agree on the change in the provisions of our Constitution on national economy and patrimony (Article XII) allowing foreigners to own land and other resources in our country? If we allow, investments will
pour in as mentioned by the government functionaries. But if we allow them, no lands will be left of for the next generation if foreigners (who are awash with cash right now) will buy all the lands in our country.

2. Should we allow the emerging new generations of politicians (children of traditional politicians), who are now much shrewder than their parents, to slowly reign our political atmosphere and poison the minds and hearts of the next generation? There are a few exceptions who are the children of great nationalists.

3. The ballooning deficit between our national budget vis-à-vis the revenues has to be managed sustainably. If not in our lifetime, the next generation will have to carry a huge burden of repaying it only through additional taxes.

4. The only remaining mineral resources has to be managed for the benefit of the next generation. This means that the current dispensation shall not simply grant it to highest bidding foreign mining companies.

5. The trade agreements that our government are entering left and right will certainly restrict any policy space promoting Filipino-owned companies or industry in the future.

6. Lastly, corruption are also infecting not only the corruptor and the corrupted but also their heirs which the next generation has also to confront.

There are many other equally important issues that I have not covered. But I will leave it to other FV well-respected bloggers to tackle.

Contributing Writer: “Jim”

Upon my return to inang bayan, I handled a class of science education grad students on my first term as an assistant prof. Many of them upon getting their masters became technical and content editors and specialists in Pinoy big publishing houses. It is from them I learned about the sordid tale of erroneous textbooks.

Mr Go seems to have given up in his crusade as the Inquirer reports.

I believe that this tale is a distillation of what I call corruption in academe and the limits of one man/woman crusades that we Pinoys often are suckers for. Academic corruption isn’t as blatant as in other places but it involves putting a price tag on knowledge and how teachers can twist this for nefarious ends. It also indicts our graduate education system and the whole Pinoy culture of education.

Looking for errors is a necessary task. Reviewers may have to be called, give their suggestions in the hope that these will be corrected. Academics who write the books will make errors since it will take superhuman effort to keep abreast of the advances in many disciplines. A good writer takes care that these errors are kept to a bare minimum. Even I do make errors in writing my scientific papers. A good peer review lessens (but not totally eliminate) the chances that such errors will see print.

The root of the problem really is keeping abreast of advances in the disciplines which requires a culture of research. Mr Go lambasts the writers who have PhDs and MAs strung after their names. The problem is in the existing academic hierarchical Pinoy culture, many of those who have PhDs or MAs rarely even bother to continue keeping tab of advances. In some schools the PhDs are treated with extreme deference. Any criticism made by someone without the PhD won’t be taken lightly. Our academic culture hates peer review as Professor Flor Lacanilao of UP has made clear in his essays. (BTW Lacanilao is a sort of Calipjo-Go of higher education. But since Laca has a PhD and he shoots broadsides against PhDs, no one can question his credentials, unlike what has happened to Calipjo-Go)

The culture of recycled knowledge endures. Local universities award graduate degrees to people who don’t contribute new knowlege. Anyone who has studied the dynamics of recycling would know that the recycled product is likely not as good as the original. Errors are propagated. Basic education suffers. Your son or daughter as well as mine does!

Overlaying this is the usual Pinoy culture of corruption which manifests as harmlessly as Christmas party “envelopes” in December or in the millions of pesos. Mr Go says he has been bribed. But Go was able to  place whole spread adverts in the blurbs and this could run into the hundreds of thousand pesos each time. Educators like me know the salary that teachers get. How could Mr Go afford to pay for the adverts when usually  academic societies get a one column five liner free space on page 16 for ads?

This seems to be Go’s achilles heel. And the higher ups in DepEd and the publishers knew they can sniff for the kill. Unfortunately Go fell into the pit himself. He apparently billed a publisher for a review with a fee. Anyone who knows what “conflict of interest” means immediately recognizes that Go fell into it! The op ed columnists just feasted on Go as he was impaled. And as expected the lawyers followed.

Reviewers may receive fair compensation. I have participated in a textbook review and received tax deducted honoraria. But I never had any axe to grind with the publisher. Textbook reviews are also part of my functions doing academic extension services. But we involved in science research are not keen on doing these since they take time out of research and the pay isn’t worth it given the tight schedules publishers require. Textbook reviews take a lot of time.

The sordid tale of Calipjo-Go is just  tempting icing on our  cake, the  education system. The icing has the requisite corruption sugar in it. It also teaches us that one person crusades have their limits. Some NGOs have given their “condolences” but crusading NGOs never last. NGOs that work are pragmatic enough to “dance with the devil” as they say.

The solution may be in improving graduate training. But that is my opinion. Perhaps readers can lend me their thoughts.

Calipjo-Go is correct to lament that those with cum laudes who apply for teaching posts in his school can’t even compose a decent paragraph. This is evidence of our sick education system. Education credentials are commodities and even if the product is faulty and the market can take you in,  erroneous textbooks that the student used hardly even matters.