"Faeldon has upstaged Bikoy, Trillanes and Jim Paredes."
"Faeldon has upstaged Bikoy, Trillanes and Jim Paredes."
I’m sure President Rodrigo Duterte is as frustrated as every Juan de la Cruz on the street over the widespread corruption in the government, lingering into the fourth year of his administration. In his last State of the Nation Address, he expressed utter disgust and frustration over the rampant irregularities.
“It is exasperating that there are times when I think perhaps it is blood that we need to cleanse and rinse away the dirt and the muck that stick to the flesh like leeches,” said the President. Ironically, it was the massive anomaly on ghost dialysis services charged to government funds by some medical firms in cahoots with PhilHealth officials that was hogging the headlines at the time.
It’s but a consolation for the ordinary Filipino that instances of abuse are exposed more often, as the President himself urged the people to tell on the crooks’ corrupt practices. Public complaints will eventually reach him, he assured us.
On the heels of the PhilHealth anomaly came those on the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office Small Town Lottery, multi-million peso worth of expired medicines in the storage of Department of Health, defective books procured by the Department of Education for K-12 program, and more recently, the Bureau of Corrections.
As far as Manong Digong is concerned, the BuCor scandal is one that hits home. His anti-corruption, anti-crime and anti-illegal drugs drive have been clearly undermined with the questionable release of thousands of convicts from various national prisons.
At least 22,000 hardened criminals, including 2,000 from Death Row of the New Bilibid Prisons and other national prison facilities, have been freed in exchange for million-peso bribes. Among them are druglords, drug traffickers, murderers, rapists, armed robbers and arsonists.
BuCor officials behind this Good Conduct Time Allowance racket, which was inherited from the Aquino administration, continued and shamelessly betrayed Manong Digong. They all betrayed and deprived crime victims of full justice and closure.
Sacked BuCor chief Nick Faeldon has, in fact, upstaged Bikoy, Trillanes and Jim Paredes combined with this second strikeout since this officer and gentleman was booted out of the Bureau of Customs over P6.4-billion shabu smuggling.
Faeldon and former BuCor officials, including Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, should face the music over the widespread corruption inside the national prisons, including illegal drugs trafficking, prostitution, kidnapping, extortion, malversation of public funds and even murder.
All prisoners released by virtue of the controversial Republic Act 10592 must turn themselves in and present themselves for reevaluation and review of their release papers.
It must be properly verified who among them truly deserved GCTA credits that shortened their terms of incarceration.
Basically, most cases resulting in the sentencing of an accused to three years or more of imprisonment involve heinous crimes such as armed robbery, human trafficking, grand-scale illegal recruitment, child molestation, etc.
It exposed the enterprising current and former officials of BuCor who supposedly granted GCTA in exchange for millions of pesos since the tenure of former Justice secretary and now senator Leila De Lima. De Lima penned the weak implementing rules and regulations of RA 10592.
Darn, she must have known that she would be jailed someday and hoped to avail of GCTA!
At least, we know now how some former BuCor officials raised the multi-million peso funds for their election campaigns.
I wonder—which government corruption scheme would be exposed next?
The Commission on Audit for one, smells a whiff of corruption at an agency where a Cabinet-rank executive with overpaid staff and public relations consultants have squandered public funds in ghost advertisement expenses, frivolous travel junkets, wasteful social events and luxurious luncheons with Yellow media members on the official’s payroll.
Still, despite the widespread corruption and incompetence, I believe there is no dearth of wwell-meaning public servants remaining in the Duterte administration.
I’m confident that Manong Digong will still succeed in getting rid of the crooks in the government and bring about true change—unless he listens to the people who have betrayed him.