Troubleshooter

FIRST PERSON

- ALEX MAGNO

Vince Dizon has an incredible capacity for sacrifice. From a short but fruitful stint as Transportation secretary, Dizon accepted the assignment to lead in the clean-up of the DPWH. It seems he is expected to single-handedly contain the conflagration over corruption threatening to engulf the Marcos II administration.

Manuel Bonoan's leadership of the corruption-plagued agency had become untenable. In his three years as DPWH secretary, corruption worsened. Command responsibility needed to end with him. Otherwise, the fire will move further up the totem pole. Every Cabinet secretary is an alter ego of the Chief Executive.

Surely, President Marcos must have concluded early in this controversy that Bonoan had to go. But replacing him must have been a challenge. It is hard to imagine any of the top-notch private sector CEOs, with the credibility government now needs so direly, would want to join the public service and handle the hottest potato of this day.

The agency is a powder keg. Anyone who accepts the offer to head it also accepts very high risks.

The DPWH is a shattered agency. It is riven with criminal syndicates linked to corrupt powerbrokers. It has an inexplicable budget marred by insertions put in by the agency's own district engineers at the behest of those who wield the power of the purse. Congressional insertions did not just happen at the bicameral conference committee. They begin at the district level where collusion between bureaucrats and politicians happen.