By Robert B. Roque, Jr.
Across Asia, anger against corruption has reached a boiling point. In Nepal, young people led by the Gen Zs are up in arms against monstrous greed by public officials, with the wave of protests turning so violent that 19 people were killed and 100 were injured.
In Indonesia, the revelation that MPs get housing allowances nearly ten times the minimum wage, as well as perks far beyond the working man’s dreams, has also sparked mass protests, ransacking of houses, and deaths.
Here in the Philippines, Filipinos watching the unravelling saga of ghost flood projects and the systemic theft of public works funds by elected and appointed officials alike is breeding contempt more than this generation could ever imagine.
For the guilty ones in government – magdasal na kayo. The public is about to explode. We, the people, feel betrayed, insulted, and disgusted as the banner infrastructure projects for progress under the highly touted “Build, Build, Build” and “Build, Build, More” programs are exposed as nothing but “Greed, Greed, More!”
Documents are coming out from Sen. Ping Lacson’s own investigation, pulling back the curtain on the most shameful DPWH corruption scandal that exposes the former department secretary’s links to this web of ghost projects, substandard works, and rigged bidding.
Lacson called them out: Globalcrete Builders, pocketing ₱2.195 billion in flood control projects from 2018 to 2024. The company belongs to the Maglanque family of Candaba, whose patriarch, Mayor Rene Maglanque, brazenly signed contracts while serving in public office, according to the senator’s report.
Then there is MBB Global Properties, linked to the same Maglanques. Lacson said MBB stands for Macy Monique MAGLANQUE (President), Sunshine BERNARDO (Secretary), Fatima Gay BONOAN Dela Cruz (Treasurer) – yes, the daughter of former DPWH Secretary Manuel Bonoan.
It makes all the sense if on September 21, the citizenry just explodes in protest. If the only way to reform the government at this point and be able to demand transparency, justice, accountability is through the streets, then let it roar, let it be massive!
Perhaps, this would prompt a more genuine effort from the government to clean its ranks. President Bongbong Marcos appears to be trying, at least by cutting across party lines in forming the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI), which will supposedly dig into a decade’s worth of flood control and other infrastructure projects.
His choice of former DPWH secretary Rogelio “Babes” Singson — who served under an administration not aligned with the Marcoses — and accountant Rossana Fajardo speaks of an effort to balance credibility with expertise. His appointment of Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong as special adviser and investigator is equally commendable.
Skeptics, though, note how Magalong’s brave exposés in recent weeks go gun-shy when corruption trails lead back to the Duterte years. But we should also remember: Magalong was shaped under the discipline of then-PNP chief Panfilo Lacson, who is now front and center in exposing the worst thieves in government.
Hopefully, if we give Marcos, his new DPWH Secretary Vince Dizon, and the newly formed ICI a chance, we could genuinely cleanse the government of its entrenched plunder cartels and restore a measure of decency in public service. Let’s not wait for people to cry for blood.
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