By Robert B. Roque, Jr.
For most of us who pay our taxes and care about this country, Sen. Manny Pacquiao’s expose last Saturday is about corruption and stopping it on its tracks.
His appearing behind a large desk covered in stacks of documents supporting his claim of P10.4 billion in “missing funds” intended for Filipinos struggling with the worst circumstances during this pandemic is alarming.
More importantly, it was a knockout punch to his “beloved president” and party chairman, Rodrigo Duterte – who had earlier been ripping him apart with foul language and taunting as the “presidential way” of discrediting any hint of corruption in government.
But there it was laid out on Pacquiao’s desk – the proof of alleged corruption in the Department of Social Welfare and Development – which would soon be picked apart in the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee. And the fighting senator is just getting started.
His anti-corruption crusade, he said, would also expose the Department of Health and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
Undoubtedly, we should applaud and support Pacquiao’s effort to rid the Duterte administration of multi-billion-peso thieves. But how far and effective this will go to change the cycle of corruption in government remains a puzzle I view with loads of distrust.
Let me unburden my doubting heart through this question: “Is this expose really a crusade against corruption or is it just all about 2022?”
If it is the latter, we are all being taken for a ride all over again, with those leading this gambit of a crusade earning chips in next year’s elections which they get to encash in the same corrupt system once they are elected.
Still, it is a legitimate issue which the President must resolve. Me being skeptical and them both being party mates and allies, it would not surprise me if this is all a zarzuela in which a grand stage is being set for Duterte to triumph over corruption.
If the President makes true of his promise in his televised Talks to the People, he will fire every official at the end of Pacquiao’s accusing finger. And both of them emerge as corruption busters! That’s a storyline made for an election year.
Of course, we are all too familiar with what Mr. Duterte does about corrupt officials he weeds out of government. He reappoints them to another juicy post separate from their previous government agency months later.
Do the names La Viña, Faeldon, or Maronilla ring a bell? Well, those are the sounds of the truck recycling garbage for this administration.
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SHORT BURSTS. For comments or reactions, email firingline@ymail.com or tweet @Side_View. Read current and past issues of this column at https://www.thephilbiznews.com
