According to Finance Secretary Ralph Recto, economic losses from corruption in flood control projects may have averaged P118.5 billion annually from 2023 to 2025, adding that the economy could have expanded as much as six percent without those losses.
“Raising revenues is no joke. Then you will see that it does not go to the right projects and the welfare of the people. Some even become non-existent. Because of ghost projects, our economy has lost P42.3 billion to P118.5 billion,” Recto said at the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) briefing at the Senate.
He said that the number of potential jobs could have ranged from 95,000 to 266,000, essentially enough to boost economic activity.
“Maybe if that money was spent better, we could have reached six percent. That’s the point,” he said, citing the impact on the economy of flood control project anomalies.
During the briefing, Recto said revenue lost from smuggling of oil and general merchandise, stood at P150 billion for the Bureau of Customs.
At the DBCC briefing, Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian also pointed to irregularities in the Executive department’s spending plan for the Department of Public Works and Highways, stressing the need for the Department of Budget and Management to do more to reform its process and analyze the details of the projects put into the National Expenditure Program.
Sen. Panfilo Lacson said that the public is faced with a “quadruple whammy” of budget insertions at all levels of the budget process – from the crafting of the NEP to the approval of the General Appropriations Bill and the GAA. He added that Congress tinkered with the budget because many of its members have links to government contractors.
If we could only quantify the cost of corruption through all the decades that our government has either pretended it doesn’t exist, sometimes pretends to address the issue, or fails to institutionalize reforms or improvements because succeeding administrations have different priorities, the peso amount would probably be in the range of trillions. These are public funds that could have gone towards progress and development, education, health, and human capital development. If these funds had only been spent properly instead of being siphoned away by corrupt public officials and their partners in crime, the Philippines could be a first world nation.
Will today’s focus on corruption actually result in any meaningful reforms, which includes accountability and prosecution? Only time will tell, because if history is any guide, any big fish that gets caught might just end up being released, and even find their way back in power.*
