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IT’S a
new year once again. At this time, everyone aims for a
fresh beginning and outlook for the year ahead.
This is
true not only for private individuals, but most
especially for business and government leaders, who list
their “to dos” and chart their target accomplishments
for the year.
Of
course, top government leaders are not exempted from the
exercise. Especially because people expect to hear
their wish list and are hoping the government’s wishes
jibe with their own. Actually, having this new year’s
wish—of having a better life ahead—is the main factor
that makes Filipinos optimistic of their future. They
believe a new year brings them new hope for a better
life.
Well,
let’s see if there’s indeed a better life this year.
Malacañang on Wednesday said President Arroyo wants a
“fresh start” for the country in the new year. Her
optimism is fueled by the usual, vaunted positive
macroindicators.
Press
Secretary Ignacio Bunye, in announcing the President’s
wish, said: “It is time for a fresh start and new
beginnings. It is time for hope, optimism and renewed
faith in humankind. It is time for our nation to come
together in peace and prosperity.”
He said
Mrs. Arroyo’s continuing goals this year are economic
development, the creation of more jobs and poverty
alleviation, and that she is hoping for “lasting peace
in Mindanao, calm and order across our land, and a new
dawn of national focus and common purpose.”
Nice
motherhood statements. But there is nothing new in them;
they have been mouthed by this country’s leaders year in
and year out.
Okay,
the President wants a “fresh start.” Fine. But what the
people are expecting is a “fresh start” that comes after
a thorough cleaning of the house after the New Year’s
party when all the guests have left: it’s a time when
every nook and cranny is vacuumed, all crumbs picked up
and stains wiped off, and all bad odors removed. This is
where a real “fresh start” should come from, not from
just sweeping the dirt under the rug.
Specifically, the people expect that the “sins” of the
past year—especially by the high and mighty —are meted
out the corresponding punishment; that justice is
served.
This
goes true most especially for those involved in
big-ticket graft and corruption. Well, of course,
kotong cops who bleed the taxi drivers for as low
as P50 even at 4 a.m. should not be left unpunished. But
parading these lowlifes as an antigraft-campaign
accomplishment is insulting the intelligence of the
people who know exactly where the bigger crimes lie, how
they’re done and on whom the ax should fall first.
What we
are saying is this: to have a real “fresh start,” the
government should put closure to the exposed corruption
cases —the alleged P728-million fertilizer scam
involving former Agriculture Undersecretary Jocelyn “Joc
Joc” Bolante, where funds were allegedly “used” by the
administration for the 2004 presidential campaign; last
year’s $329-million national broadband network project
with Chinese ZTE Co. and the $465.5-million Department
of Education’s cyber-education project; and, the most
blatant of all, the P200,000 to P500,000 put in shopping
bags distributed to provincial leaders and congressmen
right in Malacañang on October 11, among others.
Mrs.
Arroyo and her advisers should understand that without
the closure of these cases, her calls for a “fresh
start” will just be perceived as such—just calls and
pure rhetoric. And her wish for peace, calm and order
will never materialize. Remember that the rebel soldiers
in the Oakwood and Peninsula Manila events rallied their
forces against corruption in government, imagined or
real.
It is
because the poor—although they may not articulate it
well—could very well feel that corruption undermines
development, hurts them the most, diminishes the quality
of public services and raises the price of goods and
services. They experience its effects in their everyday
life; they could feel it in their guts because there is
lack of beds and medicines—or even doctors and nurses—in
hospitals; there are not enough books and desks—and
teachers—in schools; and the roads are unpaved, and
schoolchildren cross rivers and walk rough trails for
hours on their way to school.
This is
not surprising, because recent estimates put the cost of
corruption in the country at about 20 percent of the
national budget.
The more
reason corrupt officials and their cohorts should not go
unpunished; the funds from the government coffers which
these officials appropriated for themselves come from
hard-earned people’s money—literally from the blood,
sweat and tears of the ordinary workers and employees
and overseas workers.
So,
every centavo of the government budget this
year—including the more than P200-billion value-added
tax (VAT) expected to be collected, assuming the VAT
revenue in the first 11 months of 2007 alone were
duplicated or topped—should be spent exactly on where
they were earmarked. If the finance department rejects
Rep. Teodoro Casiño’s proposal to provide VAT exemption
—to alleviate the lives of workers and employees earning
not more than P300,000 a year—so as not “to complicate”
matters by setting two sets of prices for VAT-exempt and
VAT-able buyers, the government should show that these
taxes go to public and not “personal” services.
If the
government straightens out its act as far as corruption
is concerned, it could delist the country’s name from
among the most corrupt countries in the world—or No. 1
in Asia. And “dethrone” Mrs. Arroyo as the most corrupt
president the country has ever had, according to one
survey, and return the title to the former dictator.
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