LAST week Secretary Vince Dizon switched roles with Giovanni Lopez and now heads the Department of Transportation (DOTr). Lopez has taken over the graft-riddled Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).
Presidential Communications Office Secretary Lino Cayetano said President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. wants to “put the right people where they can deliver the most.”
“We are shifting gears to accelerate reform,” Cayetano quoted the President as saying. So, Dizon goes to DOTr “to fix the daily commute. Secretary Lopez goes to DPWH to make sure the reforms there last.”
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If that were the case, why did the President not put Lopez in DPWH from the beginning?
Why did he appoint Manny Bonoan and let him linger there for three long years?
As of press time, Bonoan has eluded accountability for his alleged role in the flood control fiasco after having been dropped as a co-accused in exchange for testimony that has been publicly marketed as valuable for the conviction of some legislators.
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According to reports, the recently approved House General Appropriations Bill added more than P180 billion in DPWH allocations through the Budget Amendments and Review Subcommittee.
These added items reportedly pertain to more than 6,000 projects. The DPWH project count in the national expenditure program now stands at 16,000. Observers have tagged them as lump sums for multi-purpose buildings as well as access and bypass roads.
In the meantime, watchdogs have demanded that Congress remove insertions that lack technical basis. Insertions in earlier budgets have been linked to ghost or substandard flood control projects.
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This budget will be implemented next year.
October will formally signal the 2028 election season when no less than the presidency will be up for grabs.
This will also mean re-election for many congressmen or senators, or dynastic succession for those who shall have reached their term limits. Kickbacks from these insertions are widely suspected to be funding their election campaigns.
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The provinces will continue to cry for the construction of public hospitals, school rooms and bridges.
These priority programs are supposedly under the baton of regional development councils which for quite a time have been bypassed in this long and circuitous process, with public funds directly funneled to the national leadership of the DPWH.
The task of pinpointing projects in a so-called “wish list” of legislator proponents is given to the office of the undersecretary for planning, which used to be occupied by the late Ma. Catalina “Cathy” Cabral, yes, she who brought many secrets to the grave.
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What good do we derive from ridding the budget of politically motivated insertions?
A much wider fiscal space will result in more schools and health service infrastructure that the country sorely needs.
The Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Makati Business Club, the Management Association of the Philippines, and the Federation of Philippine Industries, and several other organizations have warned against a budget with questionable “insertions” that could result in another major corruption scandal./PN
