Why reform commissions rarely deliver
The recent call to prioritize the Independent People’s Commission (IPC) bill revives a perennial hope: that a new agency can finally curb systemic corruption. Yet, this hope is shadowed by the ghost of commissions past.
I witnessed this firsthand. As a volunteer lawyer with the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) from March to May 1986, the initial fervor gave way to a grim realization, like the recently resigned Independent Commission for Infrastructure member, Rogelio Singson, that it would be business as usual for the cronies. We quit, seeing the design flaws firsthand. Before we create another body, we must ask: do we design these agencies to succeed, or are they, perhaps unintentionally, designed to fail?
For all his legal brilliance, the late Sen. and PCGG Chair Jovito Salonga designed the PCGG to showcase democratic restoration. It would not act as prosecutor, judge, and jury. The cronies would have their full day in court. This noble intent became its fatal flaw. Awash in cash, the very cronies it pursued weaponized the legal system. The PCGG, lacking independent powers, could only investigate and recommend to the Ombudsman and Sandiganbayan. The result? A process stretching 40 years—like closing the barn door long after the horse has fled.
The power test: Authority and speed. The difference between a paper tiger and an effective regulator is quasi-judicial power and speed. Contrast the PCGG’s hamstrung position with agencies like the National Labor Relations Commission. They have their own hearing officers, with a streamlined appeal path to the Court of Appeals. It is specialized and expedient.
The PCGG had none of this. It was an investigator shackled to a separate, overloaded machine. Every handoff was a point of delay. A reform agency whose work must be submitted to another entity for action is not an agency; it is a committee. And as the old adage goes, “I was hungry … and you formed a committee.”
Two nonnegotiable principles for any new commission. If a new IPC is to avoid this fate, its design must embody two nonnegotiable principles learned from the PCGG’s failure:
1. Summary proceedings, not legal theater. Proceedings must be summary in nature. The Supreme Court has already institutionalized this in various rules to promote swift justice. This must mean: no postponements, no dilatory motions. The trial must terminate within a specified, non-extendible period—think 90 days from filing. Decisions must be concise, following an adopted pattern, not lengthy literary exercises. It should have the efficiency of a Las Vegas divorce decree: clear, fast, and final by design.
2. Penalties that match the crime and the criminal. We must remember we are dealing with crooks for whom ill-gotten wealth is a tool for escape. The rules must be ruthless:
No bail for any case where the alleged ill-gotten wealth exceeds, say, P50 million.
No liberty on appeal. Conviction means imprisonment begins immediately, not after exhausting a 20-year appeal.
Appeal bond set at double the money judgment. If you want to appeal a P100-million forfeiture, you post a P200-million bond. This separates frivolous appeals from legitimate ones.
Without these measures, any new commission is just a genteel debating society for the corrupt.
The duplication trap. A final design flaw is redundancy. We create new bodies to fix old ones, often just doubling the bureaucratic maze. The Anti-Red Tape Authority has a mandate that mirrors the Civil Service Commission’s. Did we solve a problem, or simply double the red tape?
A test of true will. Creating a commission is easy. Creating one that works is a profound test of political will. The new IPC will join the PCGG as a forgotten relic, or it will break the cycle. It must have real quasi-judicial teeth, a unique mandate, and—critically—the streamlined, summary procedures and punitive safeguards that make it impossible for wealth and delay to defeat justice. We have a museum of good intentions. It’s time to build something that works.
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Atty. James D. Lansang is an 86-year-old semi-retired private law practitioner with well over 60 years of active practice. He likes to describe himself as a strictly small-town, small-time lawyer. Unfortunately, just about the only references he could count on have all passed away, e.g., Rene Saguisag and Raul Roco.
