Fighting corruption and reforming the system is a marathon, not a sprint. Those of us who dream of a much better Philippines to leave behind to our children and grandchildren must be ready to fight for the long haul. We must have not just the stamina for the run but the stomach to survive the stench of what we have yet to discover.

Anyone who watched the live telecast of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee hearing last Thursday can be forgiven if he or she started feeling the hopelessness of it all. One by one the witnesses, all supposedly senior officials of government agencies, were washing their hands of any responsibility for the pork scam.

Like what some of the culpable senators were saying for days, the officials of the implementing agencies were saying it is not their responsibility to check if the NGOs were real or not. They pointed to the senators who they said, nominated the NGOs and signed the liquidation report.

Curiously, the senators are claiming it is not their job to vet the NGOs and the duty to do that lies with the implementing agencies who released the funds. In other words, billions of pesos of our hard earned taxes were handed out carelessly by people being paid by taxpayers to do better than that.

We ought to charge the senators and the heads of the implementing agencies for serious dereliction of duty. All their personal properties must be attached and eventually confiscated to cover even part of the money lost to the fake NGOs. I believe that is only fair.

It is obvious from that hearing and from what the whistleblowers are saying that this struggle to clean up our government is going to take a lot more time than many of us think or are ready to give. We cannot allow our focus to be diverted to, for example, P-Noy’s love life.

Politicians and their spinmeisters bank on the Filipino public’s short memory and tendency to forgive after some passage of time. Scoundrels happily go their merry way after the heat dissipates.

It is a crying shame that our anti corruption agencies have proven to be most inept and often, corrupt as well. The PCGG, for example, is an agency supposed to go after the hidden wealth of Mr Marcos. But other than the late Haydee Yorac, many PCGG officials through the years ought to be brought up on corruption charges too.

The Ombudsman has proven to be a paper tiger. It also has a reputation for corruption itself. Take that unfortunate Luneta incident where tourists from Hong Kong were killed. It was sparked by a disgruntled former policeman who claims someone in the Ombudsman’s office was asking for a bribe to clear him of charges filed against him. True or not, it is easy to believe.

As for the Sandiganbayan, the anti-graft and corruption court, not only is it slow in disposing of cases, there is a sense that like the rest of the country’s judicial system, corruption has penetrated its chambers too. Other than Erap, it has not convicted any big shot, just small fry. Now there are reports that a senior justice is partying with a principal suspect in the pork barrel scam.

So unlike Indonesia! Two weeks ago, the Ramon Magsaysay Awards Foundation recognized the stellar accomplishments of Indonesia’s anti corruption agency. Created just about ten years ago or in 2002, it has sent shivers down the spine of corrupt officials in Indonesia in a way that Filipino taxpayers can only fantasize about.

Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi (KPK or Corruption Eradication Commission) confronted head-on the rampant and systemic corruption in Indonesia after Suharto. It has investigated, prosecuted and achieved a 100 per cent conviction rate in cases of bribery and graft related to government procurement and budgets.

Astonishingly, even if KPK is younger than our corruption agencies, it has jailed more than 360 people, most of them Parliament members, police officials, bureaucrats, bankers, governors, ambassadors, judges, mayors and other high officials previously thought to be untouchables. Imagine our Ombudsman prosecuting the senators and congressmen for complicity in the pork scam and also securing final conviction for Ate Glue instead of just letting her rot at the Veterans Hospital.

I am not sure if our Ombudsman is as powerful as KPK but if it isn’t, it is time that we learn from Indonesia’s lesson and similarly empower our Ombudsman as well. The KPK can conduct searches and seizures, freeze assets, impose travel bans, compel cooperation from government agencies and even intercept communications without prior judicial approval. 

The beauty of what the KPK has achieved made it one of the more significant Magsaysay awardees in recent years. KPK has apparently changed the system, implemented reforms and showed they have the tenacity and determination to curb corruption and prosecute corrupt officials. Unlike our anti corruption agencies, the Indonesian version is producing results.

I am sure KPK’s work has hardly started and that corruption in Indonesia is still rampant. But the line has been drawn and the message sent that public officials are accountable and the corruption filled days of the Suharto era is over. Just last week, Indonesia’s anti corruption court jailed the country’s former traffic police chief for 10 years after he built up an $18 million empire on a salary of $1,000 a month.

P-Noy will probably say Indonesia has had the time to get this laudable work done in the two terms of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. P-Noy only has about two and a half years left.

That is exactly the point… If we cannot even get started in a serious anti corruption drive now that we have honest P-Noy and an equally honest and competent Ombudsman in Justice Carpio-Morales, we will never ever get started.

I will grant that P-Noy is sincere and is saying all the right things in his Daang Matuwid. But it all seems to end there. Some people around P-Noy don’t seem committed to Daang Matuwid. 

Is there something wrong with our Rule of Law that makes it virtually impossible to convict anyone of corruption no matter how obvious it is? Are the senators, congressmen and their chiefs of staff going to get away in this pork scam on the claim that their signatures were forged? Are we just going to accept the claim of the implementing agencies that they have been fooled by the fake NGOs and free them of any culpability? Ginagago na tayo and there is nothing we can do?

Well… reform is a marathon. It is good that there are now more citizens who are actively engaged and enraged. But I hope we all realize we must persist because it takes a long time to straighten things out. One march to Luneta and a prayer vigil at the EDSA Shrine are not going to do it. Often I get tired and frustrated being on the back of DOTC but someone has to do it until results are produced.

Speaking of tenacity, let me express my admiration of how Bill Luz, the private sector’s co-chair of the National Competitive Council has approached his mission. Bill knows it is a marathon too. But now, it is starting to show some positive results even if we are hardly anywhere near the finish line.

Last week, the Global Competitiveness Report 2013-2014 of the World Economic Forum named the Philippines as one of “the most dynamic and rapidly improving economies in terms of competitiveness”. Our country was ranked 59th of 148 economies, up six places from last year for a total gain of 26 places from 85th in 2010.

Good as that may seem, we still have a lot of work to do. The same report noted that inadequate supply of infrastructure, corruption, and inefficient government bureaucracy are still the top three most problematic factors for doing business in the Philippines. That explains the need to put more pressure on DOTC to act more quickly without sacrificing our anti corruption goals.

Our country also dropped three spots on higher education and training (64th to 67th). Declines were recorded in government budget balance (36th to 42nd) and gross national savings (47th to 59th) as percentage of GDP.

We have no time to lose. We also cannot afford to lose hope. We must finish the marathon. South Korea has jailed two former presidents and one chaebol head. Taiwan has jailed a former president. It is time we did as well… too many former officials are enjoying the fruits of corruption.

Let us do an Indonesia… Who would have thought Indonesia can do what it is doing in fighting corruption? Are Indonesians better than us so that we should be happy with less?

Bad name

Bumper sticker: 99 percent of legislators give the rest a bad name.

 

DEMAND AND SUPPLY is Boo Chanco’s column in the Philippine Star. E-mail the author at  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco.