I am angry

By Artchil B. Fernandez

Like the rest of the nation, I am angry. If the boasting and bragging of the “nepo babies” of their ostentatious and luxurious lifestyle built on stolen wealth made one’s blood boil, the revelations this week on the controversial flood control projects drive one mad. Sharing the sentiment of the Filipino people, I am outraged at this unprecedented theft of public funds by corrupt politicians, crooked Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) officials, and greedy contractors.

Photos of stacks and bundles of money spread on a huge table like buffet food at the DPWH office shown at the House infrastructure committee hearing, stolen from ghost and substandard flood control projects, are surreal, a scene lifted from a crime film. But the pictures depict reality, not fantasy. In a concrete and graphic way, the Filipino public had a peek at how crooks in government operate.

Looking at the pictures of a huge amount of public funds feasted on by corrupt DPWH officials only fueled my anger. In one picture, the money is divided into different stacks, with each stack representing the share of each crook who partook in the robbery. The politicians who masterminded the scheme deserve public flogging.

My anger at the flood control projects controversy is shaped and informed by my experiences in the past weeks where I visited remote parts of the country and saw first-hand the poverty and deprivation of many Filipinos.

I spent a month crisscrossing the hinterlands of Mindanao visiting Indigenous Peoples (IP) communities as part of a team that evaluated a foreign-funded project. The evaluation covered the provinces of Lanao del Norte, Misamis Oriental, and Zamboanga del Sur involving Higaonon and Subanen tribes. I had a chance to talk with tribe members and leaders (datus/gukoms/timuays/pintos/bais) about the problems and challenges facing their ancestral domains. Government neglect is apparent and appalling.

In one Higaonon community in the interior of Misamis Oriental, I discovered that their elementary school had only one three-classroom building. I was informed that the building accommodates grades 1 to 6. Each classroom is shared by two grade levels. A curtain divides the classroom where two grade classes are held simultaneously. How can proper learning take place under such deplorable conditions?

I felt bad about the situation of the Higaonon school children. They are clearly deprived and denied access to quality education. How can local leaders – mayor, governor, and congressman – neglect to build two three-classroom buildings? How much does it cost? A classroom costs around PHP 350,000, so a building with three classrooms is around PHP 1.05 million. Each grade level should have a classroom. Yet this was not done by politicians, who more likely claimed a lack of funds for school buildings.

The Higaonon and Subanen school children came to mind when I saw the stacks and bundles of stolen public money at the DPWH office. A few bundles would have been enough to provide them with decent classrooms and school facilities. While IP kids are struggling to get educated, children of corrupt politicians and contractors are wasting public funds on branded items and foreign travel, their profligacy depriving others of a better life and future. This is scandalous and outrageous. One cannot help but be mad.

In the past three weeks, I joined a team of engineers that installed a solar power system in Botlog Island, Concepcion, Iloilo. Their streetlights are now functional, serving not only the community but guiding fishermen on the sea to locate the island shoreline at night. One of the difficulties of the people in the community is access to potable and usable water. They source their potable and usable water from nearby islands or from the mainland. Water is scarce and expensive in the community.

Water is a basic need. Some of us might take for granted the readily available water supply that we have, but think of communities in the islands of northern Iloilo who are denied access to such an amenity. The situation of the community in Botlog Island came to mind when I saw the stacks of cash laid out at the DPWH table. A few bundles of that stolen public fund could have built a rain harvester or catchment in the island to ease the water problem of the community.

A drop of the money stolen by corrupt officials and contractors could have been used to build free, clean, and renewable power systems in many islands in northern Iloilo that are off-grid. Less than a percent of the hundreds of billions of people’s money stolen from flood control projects would have been enough to build water catchments in the islands of northern Iloilo so communities there would have easy access to clean and usable water. While thousands suffer from lack of basic needs like water and electricity, “nepo babies” are having fun, splurging our taxes on wasteful luxuries.

Yes, I cannot help but be angry and infuriated at the flood control scandal. Children in IP communities do not have decent classrooms while people in island communities in northern Iloilo have no access to basic needs – electricity and water – with the usual excuse of lack of funds from politicians. Yet these politicians devise schemes like ghost projects to lay their dirty hands on precious and limited public resources. Worse, they squander the stolen money by gambling in casinos and spoiling their kids.

The Filipino people have every right to be indignant, angry, and mad. It is their hard-earned money that these wicked and evil people are spending like there is no tomorrow. Filipinos must not be fooled by investigations launched by these politicians that appear like a cover-up rather than a genuine effort to uncover the truth. The scandalous bleeding of public funds must end.

Collectively, we must express our anger and rage. Let the wrath of the people consume the nation until it is cleansed of the filth, rot, and foul stench of corruption.