Corruptionary

SKETCHES

- ANA MARIE PAMINTUAN

Anti-impeachment senators championing accountability...the barf bag, please.

Oh well, if congressmen can champion transparency, members of the upper chamber can also mouth platitudes to values that, for most of them, live only in their guni-guni.

After the standing ovation given by the 20th Congress when President Marcos admonished crooks to have some shame, "mahiya naman kayo," the first runner-up in disgustingly shameless moments has to be that episode after Sen. Panfilo Lacson delivered his privilege speech last Wednesday regarding the "flooded gates of corruption."

Lacson had earlier told us in an interview that he would avoid naming lawmakers in his speech, so that no political color would be attached to his exposé.

But his "corruptionary" and the details of his speech were damning to members of both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

His slide presentation showed that the biggest slice of the kickback pie in flood control went to political proponents of the projects. These are pushed through insertions during the budget deliberations and through the latest incarnation of the pork barrel, the unprogrammed appropriations.

Those budget insertions are done not only at the House, but also at the Senate, and most notoriously during the top-secret bicameral conference.

It was nauseating to listen to several senators who were part of the 19th Congress condemning the funding that they themselves gladly gave to the Department of Public Works and Highways for this year. The amount proposed in the National Expenditure Program (NEP) for the DPWH became so bloated it ended up unconstitutionally higher than the outlay for education in the 2025 General Appropriations Act.