Trick or Threat

Trick

Some weeks ago, a friend asked me when will this troublesome issues of corruption in our nation end. I say, they won’t. Well, maybe, after some weeks, it will look like they have ended, because we won’t see and hear much of it on media anymore. It won’t be because the issues have been resolved. It’s because, we may admit it or not, regardless of an issue’s significance or relevance to our lives, we’ll eventually get tired of it and would want to hear something new. We exercise this attitude not only on trends, on songs, on food, on forms of entertainment and recreation, but also on the news that we watch and hear. They may be very important matters, but we will naturally get sick and tired of consuming it over and over again that we would turn the tuning dial to something else, to something new. They may be another important issue, or of less importance, as long as it’s something new.

Do you remember the Vice President Sarah Duterte impeachment issue? Do you remember the archiving of the impeachment? How about the issue on filing the impeachment again after a year? Does anyone the member the issue of the missing sabongeros? That wasn’t a simple case of missing persons. The whistleblower’s claims of remains under Taal Lake was substantiated. Who would have ever thought that they would find bones underwater? I know we have not forgotten that former President Duterte has been locked up in The Netherlands. When he first got there, we looked forward to the first hearing which they said will be on September. September went and came but many seemed to have forgotten that ICC would convene. Do you remember the Torre vs Duterte match that did not actually happen, yet Torre won? (Now, that was amusing.) I could go on. Do you remember the DepEd confidential funds? Remember the POGOs? Do you still remember Alice Guo? Are you aware that war still rages in Ukraine?

When our eyes have looked the other way, our ears have gotten tired of listening, and our attention have turned the other way, that’s the time when movements will start to cover up the issue, divert or decrease the accountability.

Threat

Recently, the Makati Business Club pointed that additional expenditures have been inserted in the national budget, which may go by various names, but ultimately amounted to “pork barrel” for politicians, supposedly for welfare projects. (Yeah, they’re still at it.) If you think the expose of anomalous projects of the past weeks and months would deter corruption, you may be thinking incorrectly. Politicians would just turn the other way, find other ways to circumvent the policies, and get creative. If it’s not through flood-control projects, it could be illegal gambling like jueteng, fertilizer for farmers, overpriced substandard medical equipment, offshore gambling. The list of options is long and could branch out in many varieties. If their modus operandi have been blocked on the left side, they could try the right side, or dress it in a different costume. They may not even change tactics. They could just lay low for a few months.

Word on offices is due to this recent discovery of anomalies, every government project (especially infrastructure projects with DPWH) are in close scrutiny. They say every bag of sand and steel bar are seriously checked out. (Why just now?) The same scrutiny is imposed on public biddings. Imagine that massive pilferage has been revealed in your office, and because of this, every drawer is checked in the morning and afternoon every day, and your bags would be checked before you could go out, even for snacks. Then, you notice that the number of clients are starting to dip low because of the inconvenience, and of course, they wouldn’t trust the office as much as before. This precaution (or paranoia) leads to slow down work, and ultimately the general efficiency and productivity. Such has become transactions and business nowadays. What would eventually become of public services?

Is it not a paradox? Up there, they’re getting creative with insertions in the national budget; while, down here, extra precautionary measures are being implemented that slow down services.

The further erosion of the already eroded trust on the government due to the recent exposed anomalies are alleged to be the cause for the value of the Philippine peso to slip down to a dollar to close to P 60. (Well, that’s good for families who receive dollar remittances. They would be getting more bang for their bucks.) But, this decreases the nation’s standing in foreign transactions.

We’re left with continuing creative corruption, slow services and a plunging peso.

It’s not really trick or threat. It’s trick and threat.

2 Peter 2:20: “…they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.”