Neither truth nor consequence

The principal reason governmental scams, scandals and anomalies will never stop in this country is the utter lack of accountability. In short, no one — except for the poor fall guys and gals — ever gets punished.

The cycle is all too familiar. Official thievery gets exposed. It becomes headline fodder. People become enraged. High-profile investigations — judicial or legislative — are launched.

Politicians, feigning righteous indignation, grandstand. News commentators weigh in with opinions that range from the sublime to the ridiculous. Rallies are held, effigies burned. But after all is said and done, much was said, but very little was done. The masterminds often go scot-free, while the lowest on the totem pole get sued.

It has always been the case in all the great controversies after the first so-called EDSA Revolution. Mrs. Aquino sold 67 percent of Philippine Airlines shares, the PAL Building in California, and some 38 sequestered corporations to family and friends for a pittance, and no one was called to account.

Her son caused — through negligence and perhaps sheer stupidity — the death of 44 Special Action Force troopers in Mamasapano, and the then Ombudsman (Consuelo Carpio-Morales) filed minor cases for petty graft and usurpation. Billions from the sale of prime real estate in Makati that used to form part of Fort Bonifacio, which was supposed to be for the modernization of the military, could not be found, and the law enforcers looked the other way.

Billions was stolen from the Bangladesh Central Bank and a local bank was used as a conduit with the knowledge of its top officials — and a lowly branch manager was the only one sued.

Millions of doses of unsafe Dengvaxia vaccines costing billions were administered to schoolchildren on the eve of the 2016 elections to boost the presidential chances of the administration candidates, and the alleged ringleaders of the scam are now (still) in the House of Representatives.

The Dacer-Corbito double murder case, once the crime of the decade in the 2010s, remains unsolved on a technicality when the then-Solicitor General, a political ally of the principal accused, refused to do his duty to appeal the case, and the said accused is now (still) in the Upper Chamber. I could go on and on, but I’m allowed only 550 words for this column.

The same cycle now threatens to play out in the ongoing Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI) investigation on the flood control anomalies. Not only has the sheer scale of the unprecedented corruption overwhelmed the meager resources of the Commission, but the sheer number of powerful people — from the President, his Congressman son, his public works secretary, his lackey of an Ombudsman, among others — looking over the ICI’s shoulder makes one wonder why they even call it “independent.”

Meteoric was the rise of public hope when the Blue Ribbon Committee (BRC), then with Senator Marcoleta at the helm, started and proceeded with its hearings. More meteoric was the drop in expectations when the BRC was taken over by Senator Lacson (who thereafter shut it down at its peak) and the ICI suddenly becoming “camote.”

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why corruption will never cease in this country — no one knows who did what, and no one is made to pay.

A case of no truth, no consequences.