Our money, their honey; flood control, our high blood control

By Alex P. Vidal 

“Corruption is worse than prostitution. The latter might endanger the morals of an individual, the former invariably endangers the morals of the entire country.” —Karl Kraus

IT is often said that “if there is no money, there is no honey”, or simply “no money, no honey.”

It essentially means that without financial resources, we can’t expect to attract romantic interest or companionship, suggesting a materialistic view of relationships where wealth is a prerequisite for affection.

Also, it can imply that without effort or investment, one will not achieve good results.

If the taxpayers are in the receiving end (as always) when grafters in government commit plunder after plunder by stealing their money through shady deals and “ghost” infra projects, it can be metaphorically called “our money, their honey.”

The Philippines is now being scandalized by another titanic highway robbery: flood-control projects anomaly that amounts to billions of pesos.

Because of the gargantuan amount involved, it may cause the blood pressure of many taxpayers to skyrocket anew what with these never-ending episodes of graft and corruption committed by the high and mighty in government while their lives remain in the pit and don’t seem to improve from poverty level.

From “flash” flood-control to “high” blood control.

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It is possible some of the private contractors that cornered the bulk of the P4 billion worth of flood-control projects in Iloilo City that are poorly constructed, missing, and unfinished have connections with dishonest and insincere politicians who helped them secure the projects from the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).

It is also possible that some of these politicians are themselves the contractors and are only using the construction firms as dummies.

If this is the case, the politicians involved—if ever it will be confirmed that they mishandled the P4 billion funds intended for the projects—must have raked in or amassed a fortune at the expense of the taxpayers.

As we have emphasized in our previous article, we are being robbed by corrupt politicians and their minions of not only hundreds of millions of pesos, but now hundreds of billions of pesos.

From millions to billions.

So what else is new?

In every anomalous transaction in government, there is always a politician or politicians behind.

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Meanwhile, it is interesting that the revelation made by Iloilo City Mayor Raisa Treñas-Chu coincided with the scheduled arrival of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. in Iloilo City to inaugurate the “upgraded” Iloilo Fish Port Complex August 13.

It was the president who revealed earlier that P100 billion, or 18 percent of the entire P545-billion budget for flood mitigation projects undertaken by his administration from July 2022 to May 2025, was awarded to only 15 out of 2,409 accredited contractors.

The list provided by the DPWH showed that, as what the President had noted, five have projects in “almost all regions nationwide.”

The President showed the 15 contractors that hold a virtual monopoly on flood control contracts: Legacy Construction Corp.; Alpha & Omega Gen. Contractor & Development Corp.; St. Timothy Construction Corp.; QM Builders; EGB Construction Corp.; Topnotch Catalyst Builders Inc.; Centerways Construction and Development Inc.; Sunwest, Inc.; Hi-Tone Construction & Development Corp.; Triple 8 Construction & Supply, Inc.; Royal Crown Monarch Construction & Supplies Corp.; Wawao Builders; MG Samidan Construction; L.R. Tiqui Builders, Inc.; and Road Edge Trading & Development Services.

According to Treñas-Chu, Timothy Construction Company and the Alpha and Omega General Contractor and Development Corporation were two of the companies involved in these projects.

Each of the two companies was awarded over P7 billion and that four flood control projects in Iloilo City, undertaken by the two companies, have reached a cost of P600 million, but two of them have no description of where they will be constructed while the two listed areas have no ongoing projects.

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Online gambling that destroyed many lives and families will soon be nipped in the bud if the senate succeeds in its efforts to rid this social cancer from our system.

The proposal by the senate to put a halt on online gambling is now being treated by most gambling-crazed Filipinos like a national tragedy; like they lost a prime property to a hurricane, or they weren’t able to withdraw a single centavo before the rural bank, where they saved all their money, declared bankruptcy.

For some it was like a matter of life and death.

Give us online gambling or give us death.

It exposed a grim reality that without organized gambling, many Filipinos can’t go on with a normal life; they can’t function effectively as normal social beings.

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For some whose main livelihood and day-to-day existence are 100 percent reliant to online gaming, it was like a sudden death from a thousand cuts.

It demonstrated the fact that many Filipinos exist on a game of chance; that if the government or any higher authority will permanently clamp down on both legal and illegal online gambling in the country, life will also abruptly end for many gamblers and gambling operators.

We teach our children the basic Christian virtues and the values of hard work, sacrifice, fair play, simple living; yet, many of us openly pay homage to gambling—online and otherwise—and treat it as a be-all and end-all of how to survive and exist in this world.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor of two leading daily newspapers in Iloilo, Philippines.—Ed)