Back in 2013, in the middle of his term, former President Benigno Aquino III used a colorful Filipino idiom to berate three erring government agencies. In English, the question he posed to the agencies, loosely translated, was this: “How do they have the gall to do what they are doing?” The question loses something in the translation, but it is one that is worth asking again, not only of Mr. Aquino, but of his colleagues who were in power for six years.
Now voted out of power, officials and members of Mr. Aquino’s Liberal Party nonetheless pass themselves off as paragons of good government—hoping, perhaps, that the people will have forgotten how they remained silent about the corruption that plagued the Aquino administration.
For example, none of the members of the Liberal Party, so outspoken about the Duterte administration, uttered a word of protest when their colleague, then-Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala, figured in one scandal after another at his department and its attached agencies.
Alcala’s questionable acts led the Office of the Ombudsman to permanently bar him perpetually from public office, after it found him guilty of grave misconduct and conduct prejudicial to the best interest of the service.
In April 2018, the Sandiganbayan, the anti-graft court, ordered the filing of charges against Alcala and 23 others for their alleged involvement in the garlic cartel. Investigation showed that Alcala had approved 8,810 import permits despite an existing order that had suspended the issuance of such documents. Investigators also found that most of the permits went to members or affiliates of a favored vendors association, led by a chairwoman who also headed a consultative team that helped the Agriculture Department set policies on garlic production and supply.
Nor did any of the vocal Duterte critics speak out against the shenanigans of former Transport Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya, who had almost singlehandedly crippled Metro Manila’s urban light rail system when he granted a P3.8-billion maintenance contract to a woefully unqualified contractor without even the benefit of a public bidding. Abaya, at one time the acting president of the Liberal Party, no longer enjoys the protection of his former boss and now faces a plunder charge.
Finally, none of the vocal critics from the Liberal Party said anything in 2014, when it became apparent that big-time drug dealers were operating out of the New Bilibid Prison, which at the time was under the supervision of then-Justice Secretary Leila de Lima. Despite launching 30 raids from 2014 to 2016, De Lima was unable to stop the illegal drug trade in a government-operated facility. Why did we not hear a peep of complaint from her party mates?
Why, for that matter, did Mr. Aquino not take members of his official family their scandalous failures?
Good governance cannot be one-sided. Those who were quiet about corrupt practices and abuses during the Aquino administration have very little credibility when they speak out today about such abuses in the current government. The gall of these people.
