Category: Philippines Daily Inquirer

The head of the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI) on Thursday said that the administrative liability findings against former Public Works chief Manuel Bonoan in the flood control anomalies could escalate into criminal charges should the fact-finding body gather more evidence and witnesses.

ICI Chair Andres Reyes Jr. told reporters that ‘more cases are coming,’ but said the commission could not yet determine possible criminal liability on the part of Bonoan based on the level of evidence currently available.

In its fourth round of recommendations to the Office of the Ombudsman, the ICI asked that the latter look into whether Bonoan, along with former Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) undersecretaries Roberto Bernardo and Maria Catalina Cabral, could be held administratively liable for the P95.04-million flood control project in Bocaue, Bulacan province, which was found to be nonexistent despite being declared completed and fully paid for.

The contractors that received the total project amount were Topnotch Catalyst Builders, Inc. and Beam Team Developer Specialist, Inc., which entered into a joint venture for the project involving the construction of a 147-linear-meter ‘concrete slope protection structure.’

This prompted the ICI to recommend the filing of administrative charges – specifically, violations of the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees – against the three high-ranking DPWH officials. ‘We can escalate the findings against Bonoan and (others). But right now, this is the only evidence we have. What is important is that the case is gaining traction already,’ Reyes said at a press briefing before sending the latest ICI report to the Office of the Ombudsman.

The former Supreme Court justice called for more ‘whistleblowers’ who can provide additional testimonies and evidence that could link other personalities or further bolster the cases involving ‘ghost’ or substandard infrastructure projects.

‘We need people who will speak out. As I said the other day, these are criminal minds, masterminds. These are planned already and they know how to get away with it, like hiding records of their conversations,’ he said.

Meanwhile, the three-man panel asked the Office of the Ombudsman to consider filing graft, malversation, and falsification charges against eight DPWH engineers in the first district of Bulacan – namely, former district engineer Henry Alcantara; former assistant district engineer Brice Hernandez; Jaime Hernandez, officer in charge of maintenance; Ernesto Galang, chief of planning and design; project engineer John Carlo Rivera; and John Michael Marcos, Claudine Magsakay, and Ericka Chico, all of whom held Engineer II positions during the project period.

This is the second time that Alcantara and Hernandez – two engineers who oversaw and approved the flagged flood control projects in the first district of Bulacan – have been implicated in ICI reports.

Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) Secretary Vince Dizon has ordered its Central Visayas Office to deploy personnel and equipment necessary to conduct clearing operations in roads badly affected by Typhoon Tino (international name: Kalmaegi).

Dizon issued this directive after visiting Cebu City on Wednesday. He said that the agency is ready to provide the assistance needed for clearing and declogging operations in flooded areas.

‘The President said that we should provide whatever the mayors need. We will provide everything. I said that at their disposal of all equipment here in Cebu,’ Dizon said. ‘The DPWH will give whatever a district needs,’ Dizon added.

Dizon also shared that declogging operations have already begun in several areas to clean drainages covered with mud.

According to the 12 p.m. report of the National Disaster Risk Reduction Office on Thursday, a total of 587,550 families or 2,100,905 persons across eight regions in the country have been affected by the onslaught of Typhoon Tino. Of this figure, Western Visayas was the most affected region with 233,694 families (233,694 individuals) affected. It was followed by the Caraga region with 114,333 families (422,545 individuals) and Eastern Visayas with 101,105 families (359,884 individuals) affected.

Meanwhile, Office of the Civil Defense Deputy Spokesperson Diego Mariano on Thursday said that the reported death toll from the typhoon climbed to 114, where most of the reported fatalities came from Cebu province at 71. It was followed by Negros Occidental (18), Negros Oriental (12), Agusan del Sur (6), and Southern Leyte (2).

The death toll from Typhoon Tino climbs to more than 100 as residents of the hardest-hit Cebu province begin picking through homes and businesses that have been devastated by the worst flooding in recent memory.

I find myself fatigued from the news cycle lately, a precarious position to be in when I need to be writing about them every week. For the last couple of months, it has been about the ever-expanding corruption scandal. There seems to be no end in sight. Every agency, at every level, seems to be involved or at least complicit. In a way, I’m happy that we’re not limiting ourselves to flood control projects and have started to notice anomalies in other government projects, such as the farm-to-market road initiatives. There have been some movement in terms of cases filed but they are less than satisfying resolutions. There is also growing skepticism if this will lead to any substantial change.

What contributes to the fatigue-and the risk of being desensitized to such news-is that it is the same story over and over again. The story arc tends to go like this. A powerful person is caught abusing their authority for personal gain. Said person claims innocence and files for libel or perjury, insisting that the accusation is politically motivated. Underlings get charged but the powerful person gets protected by their own institution, whether through some form of immunity or just simply fleeing the country. No powerful person goes to jail. This seems to be the story of modern-day Philippine politics.

In narrative therapy, we are interested in the stories that people create about themselves. Stories are not just faithful accounts of reality; they co-construct reality around us. In this way, stories hold a lot of power. Who the author is matters as well. In an ideal world, we are the primary authors of our lives. We get to decide how we tell our story, to ourselves and others. Sometimes, however, we allow other people to tell us who we are and what we are (not) capable of. And because we are no longer the primary author, we feel dictated upon by their narrative of us. These stories then become the only reality we know.

Healthy self-narratives don’t have to be idealized or overly optimistic. What does contribute to our misery, however, is if our narrative is saturated with problems. ‘I am the black sheep of the family.’ ‘I never get what I want.’ A problem-saturated story is, by necessity, a flat or thin story. It is filled with two-dimensional characters, with heroes and villains and nothing in between. We consider it a flat story because it tends to discard pieces of reality that do not fit the narrow narrative. Choosing a problem-saturated narrative for ourselves thus limits our reality. We fail to recognize subplots that show resilience or those that humanize or increase understanding of why persons in our lives react the way they do.

We can expand this theory to the prevailing Filipino narrative. Our story is one of struggle and hardship. If you base it on what we report on the news, it is a problem-saturated collective story. Aside from corruption, we are plagued by many problems such as typhoons, floods, fires, and earthquakes. When we describe our state of education, we talk about lack of classrooms, teacher and counselor shortages, poor quality of teaching, and haphazard curricula based on the whims of the political appointee in charge. When we describe our economy, we look at rising inflation, the high costs of food and gas, the stagnant wages, and lack of upward social mobility. The everyday story of the Filipino is one where they sweat through long lines for public transportation, do a hard day’s work for meager pay that is not enough to pay for bills, and arrive home tired and exhausted, with no energy left for themselves. Integrate this with what is happening in government and politics, where the poor taxpayer gets exploited by the rich and powerful, and we can’t blame the Filipino for feeling a bit hopeless that there is anything beyond this story.

It is time to take back our narrative. We need to re-author our story as Filipinos lest we stay confined to a story of oppression. We do this by finding our voices and making sure we are heard. We should allow ourselves to be loud, if needed. We should not allow our leaders to dictate what is normal and what is possible. It is not government that should have the ultimate say in these investigations; it should be the people.

Public sentiment shouldn’t be limited to online spaces, where we are vulnerable to manipulation. We need to experience our community in person. Get to know our neighbors and see them beyond their political affiliation. Discover the hidden stories of our towns. We need to highlight the courage of the Filipino, where we stand up for each other to make way for positive change. We need stories of Filipinos doing the right thing, even when it is hard or inconvenient. We need more truthful stories. We need stories that expand our reality and show us what is possible.

The Department of Transportation (DOTr) on Thursday maintained that acting Transportation Secretary Giovanni Lopez did not humiliate the station manager of Light Rail Transit-Line 1 (LRT-1) Baclaran Station during an inspection.

This was in reference to Lopez becoming ‘heated’ (a term used by the DOTr itself in Filipino in a recent statement) upon seeing the neglected facilities at the LRT-1 Baclaran station on Tuesday, Nov. 4.

Lopez specifically addressed the issues in the LRT-1 facilities to the station manager during the incident.

‘The Acting Secretary did not scold the station manager, but rather his remarks stemmed from his frustration and genuine concern for the welfare of the commuters and his firm expectation that all facilities meet the standards our passengers truly deserve,’ the DOTr said in a statement.

‘In no way was there any intent to humiliate anyone,’ it added.

According to the DOTr, it is the station manager’s responsibility to oversee and ensure that commuters are given fair treatment and their basic needs are met, and that concerns are addressed. As such, any lapses ‘must be met with accountability.’

Furthermore, the DOTr said, Lopez himself also called for equal responsibility from the entire Light Rail Manila Corporation (LRMC) upper management, the private operator of LRT-1, which the LRMC acknowledged and recognized.

‘Our goal remains clear and non-negotiable: to carry out the President’s directive to provide a safe, efficient, and dignified travel experience for every commuter, especially for senior citizens and persons with disabilities,’ the DOTr said.

Sen. Raffy Tulfo has vowed to push for the amendment of the Hazard Pay Law to include Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) traffic enforcers and street sweepers.

During his inspection of the MMDA Communications and Command Center in Pasig City on Thursday, Tulfo discussed with MMDA Chair Romando Artes the need for hazard pay for MMDA enforcers and street sweepers who are on the streets during periods of scorching heat.

The MMDA workers are also exposed to harmful pollutants, which may cause various health problems.

Currently, they’re not covered by the Hazard Pay Law.

Due to the lack of plantilla positions of their agency, Tulfo found out that more MMDA enforcers and street sweepers remain as job order and casual employees despite serving for long years with the agency.

The senator also committed to fighting for the agency’s budget in the upcoming Senate budget deliberations to help them open up regular positions for JO and casual employees.

Tulfo praised and expressed admiration for the MMDA leadership upon learning they employ PWDs from the deaf and mute community to work for their command center.

During the inspection, Tulfo initially noticed the widely advanced and spacious facility.

The command center features huge monitors that show live feed from CCTV cameras installed in critical areas and major infrastructures in Metro Manila, as well as body-worn cameras (BWC) actively used on the ground by their traffic enforcers on duty.

If you thought that the local stock market situation couldn’t get any worse than the bloodbath seen during the COVID-19 lockdowns-when massive earnings destruction was inevitable-think again.

The Philippine Stock Exchange Index (PSEi) is now trading at just 8.9 times expected earnings of local blue chips. This price-to-earnings multiple is the poorest we’ve seen in the last 10 years, and even lower than its March 2020 or pandemic low of 9.4 times earnings, online COL Financial estimated.

Growth prospects have definitely dimmed amid the flood-gate scandal. The peso is likewise weakening and globally, fears of an artificial intelligence bubble are rising.

‘This market is not for traders, but it is attractive to long-term investors,’ COL said in a research note.

It’s also during these dire market conditions that investors are advised to pick up fundamentally sound stocks that offer attractive dividend yields.

‘The income they provide makes it easier for investors to stay patient while their prices are depressed. These stocks should also become more attractive as rates fall and could pave the way for price recovery once sentiment improves,’ COL said.

Other fund management houses have likewise recommended embracing such a dividend play.

Year to date, the best performing mutual fund of Philequity Management Inc. across all time horizons, for instance, is its dividend fund.

‘For those who still want to be exposed to equities, this is the way to go: buy the dividend yield strategies. We have shown that over time, this can outperform, especially when the broad market is not doing very well,’ Philequity vice president Miguel Agarao said in an investors’ briefing.

Looking at the performance of equity-based unit investment trust funds (UITFs) year to date-excluding those with assets invested overseas, like Manulife Asia Best Select Equity Fund, which delivered a fantastic return of 28 to 30 percent-dividend funds mostly outperformed.

The best performer is the high-dividend equity fund of Landbank, with a return of 6.9577 percent.

The dividend funds of BPI Wealth (+1.87 percent), BDO (+1.24 percent) and RCBC Trust (+0.87 percent) showed modest gains but managed to defy the 10.9-percent slide of the PSEi.

Meanwhile, among actively-managed equity UITFs, those held by AB Capital (+1.47 percent) and AUB (+0.32 percent) also avoided the bloodbath.

The Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN) must not be disclosed because of the ongoing investigations into corruption, but because ‘it is the right thing to do,’ Tingog Party-list Rep. Jude Acidre said on Thursday.

In a press briefing, Acidre expressed concerns over calls for former and current public officials, especially those linked in the flood-control projects, to release their SALNs.

‘I think if ever we’re going to open the SALNs or to expand our facilitated access to the SALNs, it should be done in the spirit of good governance and transparency. If we open this just for the flood control, there’s already anticipation that sooner or later, it will be weaponized,’ the lawmaker explained.

He also said that copies of SALNs may be requested from the House secretariat as long as there is ‘legitimate reason.’

Revisions of the House’s SALN policy are also being discussed, according to Acidre, but no details have been made final.

Acidre said that the Congress is ‘one with the country’ in the proper facilitation of releasing SALNs.

‘We’re all hoping that members of the House will find a way of really satisfying this requirement of disclosing our SALN, not because there are investigations, [but] simply because it is the right thing to do. And we owe it to the people to be more transparent about our actual net worth,’ he noted.

However, the legislator also emphasized that it would be good if former Ako-Bicol Partylist Rep. Elizaldy ‘Zaldy’ Co’s SALN is disclosed for ‘clarity.’

‘It would be nice for clarity. In fact, it should be historical. So we can see how rich he was before he became a congressman, and how rich he became during his term in office,’ Acidre pointed out.

Co is one among the many public officials linked to the anomalous flood control projects.

However, he has yet to appear before the hearings to answer allegations that he was part of a multi-million peso kickback scheme from government-funded infrastructure projects.

Last Wednesday, in a press briefing, Co’s legal counsel Atty. Ruy Rondain attested that Co’s wealth was earned through business ventures before the ex-congressman entered the government.

Amid the investigations on the corruption controversy, public officials have been called to release their SALNs.

In late October, all 24 senators made their SALNs public.

However, only 14 of the 317 members of the House have released their SALNs as of October 23.

Former Philippine National Police chief Rodolfo Azurin, special adviser and investigator of the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI), said the commission is looking into why a flood control project along the Davao River here was already damaged only months after it was completed last year.

Azurin said the ICI has taken samples of the materials used to build the dike to check if the project’s contractor followed the specifications approved by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH).

‘We saw that in less than two years, the project was already damaged, but we still have to review the contract with the DPWH so that we can determine what sanctions we can impose on the contractors and the implementers of the project,’ Azurin told reporters here.

‘We can’t say yet that it’s substandard. We still have to subject it to a series of tests, [that’s why we took samples of the] materials for quality control so that DPWH can determine whether they were using the right materials,’ he said.

Residents disappointed

Residents who live in the area said they were happy when the dike was finished last year because they were always fearful every time it rained because of the rise in the river water.

But according to a resident, they were disappointed when, two months after it was completed, the dike was already damaged and part of the river water flowed into the embankment where their houses stood.

The residents also showed a makeshift bridge that they constructed over the embankment, but a 7-year-old and a pregnant woman were injured when they fell over it.

Azurin was joined by Public Works Undersecretary Arthur Bisnar and Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong to inspect three of the 51 questionable projects earlier flagged by the DPWH in the Davao region.

‘Nothing to hide’

Meanwhile, Davao City Rep. Paolo Duterte lashed out at Act Teachers Party-list Rep. Antonio Tinio, who earlier said they reviewed 121 flood control projects along the Davao and Matina Rivers from 2019 to 2022, and found that around 62 of these were supposedly ‘awarded without details.’

‘Let me make this clear-Davao City has nothing to hide,’ Duterte said in a statement.

‘Every single flood control project along the Davao and Matina Rivers was implemented, inspected, and validated by the Department of Public Works and Highways and the Commission on Audit (COA). The structures exist. They are serving the people. They are not ‘ghosts,” he added.

He also told the ICI: ‘Stop pretending this is a ‘national audit,’ when you keep flying your people – retired police, recycled appointees, and non-engineers – to Davao just to take photos beside working projects. If you want credibility, send real engineers, not political operators,’ said Duterte, who again called the president ‘bangag.’

He dared the ICI to look for ghost projects in Luzon, not in Davao, where they can see the projects standing and being used by people.

Canlaon has been placed under a state of calamity following a resolution passed by the city council during its regular session on Nov. 5, after massive damage was reported in several barangays due to flooding and landslides caused by Typhoon Tino.

Authorities are still conducting search and rescue operations for at least 11 missing persons, while the confirmed death toll has risen to 16, according to city officials.

Mayor Jose ‘Batchuk’ Cardenas said city personnel have been working round the clock to clear roads, bridges, and waterways as part of ongoing recovery efforts and preparations for an incoming typhoon expected to enter the Philippine Area of Responsibility on Saturday, Nov. 8.

In a Facebook post, Cardenas said the local government aims to complete all road-clearing operations within four days to allow safe transport of relief goods and essential supplies into the city.

He also noted that desilting operations in the Malaiba River are a crucial part of flood mitigation efforts. Meanwhile, Malacañang announced on Thursday that Canlaon City is among the localities to receive P10 million in direct aid from the Office of the President to support relief and rehabilitation efforts.

Local relief operations have intensified, with private groups and volunteers launching both online and on-site donation drives for affected residents.

As of writing, communication lines remain unstable, and power supply has yet to be restored in most parts of the city. Officials said the immediate needs of affected families include clean water, food, and temporary shelter.

Despite the city’s ongoing challenges, Mayor Cardenas expressed optimism that the people of Canlaon will overcome the crisis.