Ad hoc absurdity: Why commissions fail while ‘ghosts’ prosper
The script is as predictable as the monsoon rains, and twice as destructive. Whenever a multibillion-peso scandal threatens to drown the administration in public ire, the executive branch reaches for the “Independent Commission.”
The latest iteration, the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI), is already taking on water. Tasked with investigating a flood control scandal, the ICI has instead become a master class in institutional impotence.
When Benjamin Magalong and Roger Singson walked away from their seats, you do not ask a seasoned general and a veteran Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) chief to lead a “crusade” and then deny them the sword. Magalong’s exit and Singson’s departure in December signaled that the ICI was never meant to be a predator—only a prop.
The “ghost” reality. While the public is distracted by the political circus in Manila, the numbers in the ICI’s own interim reports are staggering. In Bulacan and Central Luzon, the Commission on Audit (COA) has flagged over P325 million in “ghost” protection structures.
Specific contractors like Wawao Builders and the Discaya couple’s Darcy & Anna Builders are implicated in projects. Former DPWH Secretary Manuel Bonoan is accused of submitting “incorrect grid coordinates” to Malacañang. This isn’t just negligence; it is a sophisticated conspiracy to defraud the state.
The failure of ad hocism. History is a graveyard of these commissions. From the Agrava Board and the Davide Commission to the Presidential Commission on Good Government and the Presidential Anti-Syndicate Task Force, the result is almost always the same: high costs, low convictions, and the eventual rehabilitation of the accused.
These bodies fail because they are born with a fatal defect: they lack permanent prosecutorial teeth. They are created to “study” and “recommend,” while the Ombudsman and the Sandiganbayan—are left underfunded or bypassed for political theater.
The Distraction Economy. Today, the pursuit of the “most guilty”—the likes of Zaldy Co, currently a fugitive abroad, and the Discayas—is being drowned out by the “flavor-of-the-week” issues. While the House debates whether a congressman’s “imagination” violates the Bawal Bastos ordinance, the men and women who engineered the theft of P800 billion in flood control funds are counting their kickbacks in silence. What to do instead?
The solution is not another commission. It is the ruthless enforcement of existing mandates.
1. Fund the COA and the National Bureau of Investigation to complete the technical audits and criminal builds.
2. Abolish the “pork” in flood control by centralizing the bidding process and using real-time satellite monitoring for every kilometer of slope protection.
3. Hold the principals accountable. If a project is a “ghost,” the district engineer and the secretary who signed the completion certificate should be in a cell, not on a flight to the United States.
Until we stop creating committees to solve crimes, the “Sick Man of Asia” will remain bedridden—not for lack of medicine, but because the doctors are too busy forming a committee to decide who gets to hold the stethoscope.
JAMES D. LANSANG,
jeemsdee@yahoo.com
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