Theft, with a round of applause

The Department of Public Wasting Money has already lost the bridge, the flood control, and the classrooms. Now they want the money back.

Poor Vince Dizon, inheriting the stigma and a deadline, asking for an P881-billion budget to fix a mess he did not make. Courage? Madness? Sometimes in this country, it is just the same.

Congress gasped. After “investigating corruption” it had already voted for, it said: “Nope, P529 billion.” Fifty percent. Vanished.

Punishment or proof that everyone suddenly remembered they were being watched? When everyone is guilty, everyone pretends to be careful. This is everyone washing their hands in the same sink. Congress did not say no to corruption. It said, “not so obvious.”

We love clean men as shields; it is how reform works here. Appoint the honest man, cut his budget, then dare him to fail.

And who is congratulating themselves? Congress. The same collective that enabled the overpriced contracts to begin with.

Now the bridges are expected to collapse more slowly, and classrooms will still sit in the rain. God willing, we can trust people who just admitted to overpricing steel, cement and asphalt to behave better now.

With P529 billion, we will have a Department of Public Works that actually works.

Wrong. Shaving a few billion only slows down the theft, as well as the roads people actually drive on. Sharks swim just the same in a pond or the ocean. They will eat everything in sight. When money gets tight, corruption simply negotiates better terms. It does not need a big budget, just a friendly signature.

You cannot solve ghost projects by ghosting real projects. Now every collapsed bridge can come with a ready-made excuse: “Sorry, we were underfunded.”

The real scandal is not the missing money. Please, money goes missing all the time. Very talented at it. The scandal is that the people hired to stop each other decided to start a band: the President, his supermajority in Congress, and the DPWH.

And nothing unites the executive and the legislature like a shared scandal. Power loves company, especially when it is cheating.

When the President declared flood control as priority No. 1, Congress applauded because it heard “permission.” It heard “safe.” Flood control was the safest scam in government — until the sky testified.

We are demanding that you act like Congress. Like the institution designed to stand up to the executive when necessary. Democracy dies when executive overreach happens with legislative consent.

You claim to represent the people, yet line items favoring the President’s priorities passed without objection. Tell us: when did your duty to your constituents become secondary to your duty to the Palace?

Billions were approved for projects that did not exist, yet no action was taken to investigate until the public found out.

Whose job was it to stop this before the taxpayer footed the bill — your collective nod or the President’s pen?

Cutting the budget does not clean the system, only the consciences of the people who broke it.