Who can better talk about corruption than one who had been jailed for it in July 2014.
Juan Ponce Enrile was 90 when he underwent trial and was jailed for pocketing P172 million from the pork barrel funds from 2006 to 2010. The pork was abolished by the late President Benigno Simeon Aquino III in his efforts to tackle corruption, reported Reuters then.
Now, he talks about a more rampant corruption in government than before, and which he blames on the 1987 Constitution, that he said only favored the rich, as if he is no millionaire.
During the hearing chaired by Sen. Robinhood Padilla of the Constitutional amendment committee, Enrile was asked on the earlier proposal of veteran lawyer Estelito Mendoza to amend the 1987 Constitution so that members of the judiciary would go through the screening process of the Commission on Appointments (CA).
The former Senate president then proceeded to explain the old system where all appointees in government must get the confirmation of the CA, which he said had corruption, but not as much as now.
I’m sorry to say that during our time, corruption is rampant. All lumpsum money being budgeted by Congress is subject to corruption. He then cited the TUPAD program of the labor department, where the cash for work program funds for emergency employment of displaced, seasonal and underemployed workers for 10 to 30 days during the pandemic were being pocketed.
Not everyone is doing it, but many are pocketing the cash and using it for election to buy the votes of our poor countrymen.
Now if we go back to the old system that all presidential appointees are subject to confirmation then Congress can now exercise its power to exact accountability for the monies that they appropriate for every department, agency or office in the entire national government.
Enrile also noted that in the past, there were only a few corrupt prosecutors. But now, many are languishing in jails because of the slow justice system in the country.
What Congress does now is budgeting, they no longer check the results of the budget they allocated.
He said when he was Senate president all appointees including the justices of the Supreme Court are subject to the CA’s confirmation.
“Palagay ko having been a participant of the government under the 1935, 1973, and 1987 and all the Constitutions of the Philippines from Quezon to now, I’d rather that we go back to the system under the 1935 Constitution,” he concluded.
Scathing as this remark is, corruption has been like a virus creeping to the lungs until all life is terminated.