A couple of issues ago, I mentioned here that it will take the Independent Committee on Infrastructure (ICI) nearly three years to file cases against those who have engaged in corruption. Recent meetings of the Senate on establishing an agency to address corruption have revealed that the extent of the problem is so vast that it will require a significant amount of legal work, which will overwhelm the ICI as presently constituted.
The practice of engaging in ghost projects, substandard construction, and rigging bidding at the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) occurred nationwide. Each case involves an average of 10 offenders. If a case is filed for each District Engineer's Office, and there are 254 of them, then at least 254 cases will involve 2,540 offenders. Suppose there are two cases filed per district; the figure will balloon. The fight becomes more time-consuming and also resource-consuming.
Based on the submissions to the Ombudsman, the ICI is able to process around two to three cases every week. At this pace, it will take ICI at least two years to recommend filing the cases. The trial at the Sandiganbayan is expected to take longer, with an estimated duration of two years per case.
Without a doubt, this effort will bridge administrations. This means that the next President and the next administration must support the continuation of the process so that it leads to conviction, imprisonment, and the return of the money stolen from these projects.
We are only at the beginning of the process. The Ombudsman will take a longer time to deal with the cases so that they are ripe for filing at the Sandiganbayan.
It is a spectacle never before seen in the Philippine bureaucracy.
The prevalence of corruption is so widespread that we are grappling with solutions and improvements to the process, tackling issues such as who will investigate and how agencies can coordinate their efforts to facilitate the process.
In this sense, the adjustments made by agencies as they perform their functions in relation to the cases are commendable. The signing of agreements provides a mode of coordination and gives the process a sense of urgency that has never been seen in the fight against corruption. But there has to be more than the ceremonial signing.
In this situation, it is easy to monitor what each agency is doing because the process allows it. There is always documentation because that is essential in due process. Thus, an agency that is not performing well or is delayed in its actions will be easily monitored through its activities and outputs.
This fight against corruption will be part of their accomplishments reports. Each agency will be accountable for its actions in this fight. But it is double-edged. Their failure to accomplish much will also be revealed in these reports and, of course, in the meetings among agencies, which ICI must encourage to bolster the sense of urgency of actions.
We must remember that the public funds involved exceed a trillion pesos.
However, the disclosures about this corruption appear to have slowed down in recent weeks.
With all the administrative preparations underway, the government is clearly preparing for a major push from all sides, including inspections, ICI hearings, investigations of bank records, examination of contracts and vouchers, obtaining affidavits, and filing complaints. There are now hundreds of government employees engaged in this effort from various agencies, contributing to addressing the severe administrative requirements of the fight against corruption.
I can predict that cases will be filed in greater numbers by December.
We will continue to tackle this subject in future columns.
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