Where’s the ‘big fish’? Critics recall Marcos vow
Several lawmakers on Thursday criticized President Marcos for not fulfilling his promise to jail even a single “big fish” in the multibillion-peso flood control scandal before Christmas, saying that he just engaged in propaganda.
In a statement released on Christmas Day, the Makabayan bloc composed of ACT Teachers Rep. Antonio Tinio, Gabriela Rep. Sarah Elago, and Kabataan Rep. Renee Co said the President’s self-imposed deadline had passed without any major arrests, accusing the administration of offering “empty rhetoric” instead of accountability.
“The deadline has passed, yet not a single ‘big fish’ has been apprehended,” they said. “So much for ‘some people will spend Christmas in jail.’”
It was Mr. Marcos himself who used the term “big fish” in relation to anomalous flood control projects in a podcast in September.
He said the government would have to have strong evidence against people behind the corruption and kickback scheme.
“I suppose the description that we sometimes use—the ‘big fish,’ the ones truly operating this system,” he said.
On Nov. 13, he followed that up, but did not use the same term.
“I think before, no, not ‘I don’t think,’ I know before Christmas many of those named here—their case will be finished,” Marcos said when asked about the fate of 37 individuals allegedly involved in the kickback scheme.
“They’re going to be locked up. They won’t have a Merry Christmas,” he added.
But after months of Senate and House hearings, public briefings and investigations by the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI), no high-level official had been jailed.
“He left the Filipino public hanging,” Makabayan said. “The President’s Christmas deadline was nothing more than empty rhetoric designed to pacify public outrage over massive corruption in his administration.”
“The biggest Christmas scam is the administration’s pretense of fighting corruption while protecting the powerful and well-connected,” they added.
Echoing their sentiment, Kamanggagawa Rep. Eli San Fernando said that since ghost and anomalous flood control projects were exposed, the public heard “only press releases.”
“They try to look good on camera, acting brave and unafraid of sacred cows, but when it came to results, nothing!” San Fernando said. “While the people are being flooded and suffering the hardships of life, the administration is drowning us in promises.”
Appeal for patience
Palace press officer Claire Castro asked for more patience from Filipinos, assuring them that the government was on the right track in running after those involved in corruption in accordance with the rule of law and respecting constitutional rights.
She told the Inquirer on Thursday that the Marcos administration took the “necessary actions … in just four months” to make all the people involved in corruption-riddled infrastructure projects in the past years liable.
She cited gains in the government’s efforts—assets of those suspected to be involved in the anomalies have been frozen upon the petitions filed by the Anti-Money Laundering Council, millions of pesos worth of kickbacks had been recovered by the government and warrants of arrests had been issued.
She noted that several suspects went into hiding and some arrests had been made.
Comparing the Marcos administration’s anticorruption efforts with those of the Duterte administration’s, she said the previous government did not act in making corrupt officials accountable.
“As a matter of fact, not even a single cent of illegally obtained money was recovered during that time,” she said.
Case referrals
When the President spoke in November, he said the first batch of case referrals from the ICI to the Office of the Ombudsman implicated 37 individuals, including lawmakers, former officials and current officials of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), and contractors.
Among them were Senators Joel Villanueva and Jinggoy Estrada; resigned Ako Bicol Rep. Zaldy Co, a former House appropriations chair; former Caloocan Rep. Mitch Cajayon-Uy; and Commission on Audit chief Mario Lipana.
As of Dec. 25, there were only 23 individuals implicated in the flood control scandal who are detained pending trial or held in Senate custody for contempt.
Public Works Secretary Vince Dizon said on Dec. 18 that only nine, excluding Co, of the 16 individuals accused in the substandard P289.5-million road dike project in Naujan town, Oriental Mindoro, are in custody.
The government has so far filed four separate criminal cases against more than 20 people, including Co, who was declared a fugitive for refusing to return home to face charges.
The charges were two counts of violation of the antigraft law and one count of malversation in connection with the Naujan case.
Co is the sole defendant in one count of graft but is a coaccused with government engineers from the DPWH Mimaropa region in the other graft case and in malversation, which is nonbailable for exceeding the P8.8-million threshold of government funds involved. Co’s construction company, Sunwest Inc., won the project.
The fourth case charges billionaire contractor Cezarah “Sarah” Discaya and several Bulacan DPWH engineers and officers of her company, St. Timothy Construction Corp., for a P96.5-million nonexistent flood control project in Davao del Norte.
‘Brains, godfathers safe’
San Fernando lamented that no elected official linked to the scandal has been incarcerated as of Christmas Eve, despite months of investigations by Congress and the ICI.
According to San Fernando, it is not enough that “lower-level officials” and contractors accused of participation in the flood control scam are held accountable.
“If the President is serious, congressmen and senators involved in these projects should be arrested, too. We cannot just go after those who are cleaning up things while the brains and the godfathers are safe,” he said.
What’s worse, he added, was that key people had died or had left the country. “What would you call that? Well, incompetence.” —WITH A REPORT FROM INQUIRER RESEARCH
