It’s a spectacle that has become all too familiar: government agencies springing into action not when their duty demands vigilance, but only when the footfalls of a high-ranking official echo down the hall or, worse, onto the ground they are supposed to be monitoring.
Safety inspections are postponed, complaints are ignored, and crucial processes are left to decay, all until someone powerful shows up.
Then, miraculously, problems are “fixed,” reports are polished, and the illusion of competence is restored.
This is not oversight; it is theater. And while officials move from one high-profile visit to another, the systemic neglect beneath remains untouched.
Last week, Public Works and Highways Secretary Vince Dizon made a visit to Samar – and this theater of absurdity is exposed.
Media immediately made fodder of how Dizon personally reprimanded local DPWH officials for staging this elaborate theater of deception that masked the overall deterioration of public infrastructure in Eastern Visayas.
Of course, what these theatrics cannot hide is the cost of the neglect of our road network.
We’re not just talking about longer trips from Samar to Leyte due to potholes and roads that do not meet international standards.
We’re talking about billions in actual costs and lost economic opportunities, deepening the economic malaise that Eastern Visayas has suffered for decades.
Reprimands are all right. But more should be done to ensure accountability.
For one, Dizon can start by formally filing or recommending criminal charges against the regional officials responsible for this hell Samareños are now enduring.
Take a look at what consumer advocate and OpinYon 8 publisher Ray Junia did last year: he filed charges at the Office of the Ombudsman against former DPWH Secretary Manuel Bonoan and DPWH Eastern Visayas Regional Director Engr. Edgar Tabacon for "economic sabotage."
If Secretary Vince is serious in sweeping clean an agency where corruption has become the norm, he must do it the fast and "legal" way.
Otherwise, Dizon stands as yet another actor in this despicable sarsuela of cover-up and deception that has apparently become the way of life inside his agency.
This neglect is economic sabotage, period.
Let the ax fall where it should. Sec. Vince should do the right thing in restoring trust to this very corrupt administration.
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