By Renato Reyes Jr. / President, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan
Last week, Bongbong Marcos was asked if he is worried if the corruption allegations will reach the doorstep of Malacanang since he signed the budget, he oversaw the releases of funds as well as the actions of his appointees and political allies. Marcos said he was confident in “what he did and did not do,” and dismissed the allegations as mere politicking by those who wanted him out of power. This followed statements from Malacanang that the president was “blameless” in the flood control mess. As they would want us to believe, why would the president “initiate” something that would backfire on him?
The argument smacks of confirmation bias. This is the tendency to seek out, interpret, and remember information in a way that confirms one’s pre-existing beliefs. Marcos is biased in his “belief” that he is blameless for corruption and uses the fact that he initiated the probe as evidence to support this belief, regardless of any other facts that may arise during the investigations.
Let’s look at what he did and did not do. He cannot remain blameless even if he started the probe, especially when facts point out that he authorized the release of unprogrammed appropriations which were used to fund local infrastructure projects including thousands of flood control projects. He cannot continue to assert innocence when it was under his term that unprogrammed appropriations ballooned to unprecedented levels, even as congressional allocations for local projects were already being inserted or amended into the budget. He cannot claim insulation from the investigation that he started because the budget process starts with him and is implemented by him. All the more he cannot claim being blameless when officials of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) say that every stage of a project, from its inclusion in the National Expenditure Program (NEP) up to the General Appropriations Act, is attended by corruption. And neither should he be spared from investigation that it is revealed by Comelec data that he and the vice president received campaign donations from contractors doing public works, and that these contractors reportedly saw a significant increase in awarded contracts after the 2022 elections. What he did not do was dismantle the entire system of corruption and patronage.
In 2013, the issue of corruption started with the expose of Napoles and the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) kickbacks and ghost projects and Malacanang was on the offensive against political rivals. The corruption probe led to the Million People March and the Supreme Court (SC) voiding of the PDAF as the form of congressional pork. But it did not end there and soon, the issue of presidential pork was raised and the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) was also exposed leading to a new wave of protests and the SC declaring DAP as unconstitutional. This was the first time that the call “Lahat ng sangkot, DAPat managot!” was used.
To portray demands to hold Malacanang accountable as a mere opposition attempt to grab power is a cynical ploy to discredit legitimate calls for transparency and accountability on the NEP, Unprogrammed Appropriations, fund releases and other verifiable and factual issues.
Last July, Marcos threw a huge rock inside a glass house that represented the unbridled corruption in Philippine government. Members of Congress gave him a standing ovation as he basked in the adulation of being “anti-corruption.” But we knew even then that the issue will go all the way to Malacanang. It was inevitable that the entire system of corruption, the proverbial glass house, would turn out to be very vulnerable and show widening cracks. It takes both the executive and legislative branches for the system of corruption to work. It takes the highest official of the land to allow a system of congressional allocations to persist, even informally, despite the presumption of corruption, rigged bids and kickbacks.
The problem with the Independent Commission for Infrastructures (ICI) from the start was that its mandate did not include exposing and dismantling the entire corrupt system, which would necessarily involve the investigation of the highest officials of the land. It doesn’t help that the ICI refuses to hold live hearings and that it can welcome a representative of the US Embassy even as ordinary Filipinos struggle to gain access and information from the ICI. Last week’s high profile visit by an official of the US Embassy raised questions on how a foreign government can influence an internal domestic investigation.
The myth that corruption does not lead to Malacanang was upended last week when protesters from various universities marched to Mendiola to demand accountability from both Marcos and Duterte over the national budget, the infrastructure allocations for lawmakers, the unprogrammed appropriations, and the lack of significant prosecutions. The budget hearings educate us on how this corrupt system persists and operates and the people are taking action. The myth of unassailability, like the glass house, will shatter into a million pieces. #