Flooding with crime

Flooding with crime | Daily Tribune

The recent revelations about flood control projects has once again laid bare the frailties of governance in the Philippines. Flood control, meant to safeguard lives and property, has too often been converted into a source of illicit wealth.

The Department of Justice (DoJ) now stands at the forefront of ensuring accountability, with the weight of the law as its weapon. But the real challenge lies not merely in filing charges, but in proving them.

The likely charges to emerge from this controversy are malversation of public funds under Article 217 of the Revised Penal Code and, where the scale of the scheme meets the threshold, plunder under Republic Act No. 7080. At their core, both crimes involve the illegal diversion of public money, but the complexity of proving them differs significantly.

Malversation requires proof that a public officer had custody of the public funds by virtue of their office, and that those funds were misappropriated, embezzled, or otherwise misused. Here, the crucial evidence consists of financial records — fund releases, project contracts, disbursement vouchers — matched against actual project implementation.

If the money is missing, and the accountable officer cannot satisfactorily explain where it went, the law presumes malversation. In practice, documentary evidence coupled with audit reports from the Commission on Audit can be sufficient, supported by witness testimony from implementing officials.

Plunder, by contrast, is a far heavier lift. The law requires the prosecution to establish that a public officer amassed ill-gotten wealth of at least P50 million through a series or combination of overt acts such as kickbacks, misappropriations, or fraudulent contracts. Unlike malversation, plunder does not enjoy a presumption from the mere shortage of funds.

Prosecutors must stitch together a mosaic of evidence: bank records tracing illicit deposits, corporate documents linking dummy companies to officials, testimonies from whistleblowers, lifestyle checks showing unexplained wealth, and paper trails of rigged bidding. This evidentiary burden is higher, more complex, and more vulnerable to technical defenses.

In this sense, malversation is easier to prove — almost mechanical once shortages are established — while plunder demands a broader narrative of conspiracy and accumulation. It is precisely this complexity that has led to long, drawn-out plunder cases in the past, often bogged down in technicalities or political pressure.

As the floodwaters continue to endanger communities, the metaphor is apt: the fight against corruption is itself a battle against being submerged. The DoJ must move decisively, but carefully, recognizing that convictions rest not on outrage alone but on airtight evidence.

The success of these prosecutions will show whether the state can dam the flood of corruption that for too long has washed away public trust.