WITH a convicted former president for plunder who is now strutting like he is God’s gift to the Filipino people, and an incumbent one who sits on a pile of trash and scandals taking sway in the affairs of our people, there is no way that graft and corruption in the country will be curbed, if not eliminated, to a reasonable level.

        “Corruption begets bad politics, and bad politics begets further corruption,” a certain Michael Johnston wrote. It’s a vicious cycle.

        According to the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, corruption damages the political fabric of a society. It said: “Some political scientists argue that corruption is bad not so much because money changes hands but because it bypasses representation, debate and choice. If politicians pay for votes or use state patronage to win support, then the candidates who get elected are not necessarily those who represent the citizens’ best interest. Patronage skews the political playing field; it results in limited political choices for the electorate, as only those who have money and access to government largesse will contest public office. In such a situation, social debate and democratic development are stunted.”

        Further, these scientists argue that money spent on useless infrastructure by corrupt congressmen is also money taken away from clinics and schools which are more sorely needed but these politicians scrimp on them because they can make more kickbacks elsewhere as on roads, bridges, and even waiting sheds and fertilizers. Writing on his blog, Naga City Mayor Jesse Robredo (jesserobredo.wordpress) has this personal experience to tell about on-going corruption in a DPWH district engineering office:

        “Let me just share my experience in the recent past. Last October 20, 2007, the Naga City Government Project Monitoring Committee (NCPMC) submitted its inspection and evaluation report on projects implemented by the DPWH Engineering District 2 in the city. Spanning over six months, these projects were funded by regular allocations from DPWH and the pork barrel of Congressman Luis Villafuerte. Among the NCPMC’s findings were: 1) almost all of the projects were overpriced, ranging from 74% to 837%, when compared to similar projects implemented by the city government, 2) some of the projects reported to have been undertaken could not be located and 3) some projects were undertaken on privately owned properties. The average variance in unit cost for a comparable project undertaken by the city government was 261%. And worse, works on some of the projects were poorly done. While, historically, project costs of DPWH projects were higher than that of the city government of Naga, this time the differences in cost estimates were simply outrageous and scandalous. To think that some of these projects were implemented side by side or were contiguous with projects undertaken by the city almost during the same period.

        “Off hand, the estimates were simply bloated. Despite several requests, the District Engineer refused to provide the NCPMC with a copy of the Programs of Work. Instead of taking to task the contractor who was billing the agency for a project that was completed a long time ago, it appeared that DPWH just allowed the contractor to do additional works to cover up the misdeed. No explanations were provided why the unit cost differences between work done by DPWH and the City Government of Naga were beyond the normal. Like the many other complaints on projects undertaken by DPWH, the Engineering District 2 simply stonewalled hoping that the complaints would just blow away — of course with a little help from the other entities involved in the inspection and audit of these projects. As of this writing, more than two months after the Regional Director of DPWH Region 5 has been notified, no action has been taken yet. Incidentally, the COA Regional Office and the NEDA RPMC were also notified.

        “It is no surprise then that old hands in the government construction business now say that the “Marcos years” were better. Then, the SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) was 10% — all in. They say the standard now is at least 30% SOP or more, depending on the kind of project being undertaken. (The SOP runs up to 50% for desilting and road regravelling projects. Some contractors alleged that around P1 Billion worth of desilting projects were undertaken in the Bicol Region prior to the May 2007 elections.)”

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        To help combat corruption, a Jesuit prescribed social auditing to monitor and audit publicly funded projects by the civil society. Social auditing is defined as going beyond the traditional financial auditing of all government budget allocations. It tries to verify on the ground the progress or completion of a project from the point of view of the intended beneficiaries. Specifically, it checks the quality of materials used, the comparative costs incurred, and the time schedule agreed upon. The construction of a highway could be monitored by representatives (not the barangay official) of local communities. Other examples would be monitoring the services of an electric coop or a district hospital. In a keynote speech during the recent foundation anniversary of the PRRM in UP Diliman, Mayor Jesse Robredo called on concerned NGOs to take a serious effort in monitoring government projects which he said would not only expose corrupt officials but would lead the way towards improving the performance and services of government agencies.