For the past few months, Filipinos have equated corruption with ghost flood control projects, which if you come to think of it, are truly among the worst forms of stealing from the taxpayers because in these cases, almost 100% of the funds are siphoned away by the proponent-contractor-government official combo as the funds are budgeted, approved, and released but nothing is built.
However, as we have seen from the exposes, and know deep inside in our hearts, there is more to corruption in this country than just ghost projects. After all, given so much time and opportunity by a government that has chosen to look the other way for years, the corrupt have certainly been busy enriching themselves at our expense.
We already know that almost every public works project has a kickback that benefits the corrupt government officials involved in it. That is why we have a government that loves to build build build. Even when it is done building, our officials even find reasons to build more, by breaking up perfectly serviceable roads just so they can build some more, this time in the name of maintenance. Once you see how corruption works in a system that has been co-opted by the corrupt, it is easy to see the motivations for many strange government projects in this country.
Aside from ghost projects, there are also monster projects that to be fair, actually exist, but the difference is that they are just plain ugly. This could explain why some of our local public officials can proclaim with confidence that there are no ghost flood control projects in their jurisdiction. However, based on the recent floods that we have been experiencing, there must be some monster projects out there because too many people are complaining that it just floods so much more and so much more easily these days, despite all those flood control projects that are supposedly not ghosts.
If there are ghost projects that don’t exist, and regular kickback-affected projects, what would make a monster project different?
If you come to think of it, a monster project would be one that is not just physically ugly, but has a monstrous effect on the affected community, or could maybe even be worse than a ghost project because by being monstrously corrupt.
Unnecessary and ineffective flood control and road repair projects immediately come to mind. These are not technically ghosts because they exist, but because they were most likely conceived by the necessity of a juicy kickback rather than any real benefit to the community, they end up either not making any difference at all, or even making matters worse.
Searching for ghost projects is easy because all the investigators have to do is to verify their existence. If it’s not where it’s supposed to be, it’s a ghost. However, when it comes to monster projects, they are a bit more difficult to find because although they exist, their monstrosity comes in many forms. Are they really necessary? Effective? Efficient? Properly priced? A ‘no’ to any of those questions could indicate a monstrosity, but then, since it already exists, it will require a competent technical team to determine the degree of that monstrosity, which given the number of dubious projects in this country, that is already too much work. So we just go back to the easier job of ghost project busting instead. Maybe after that is done, we can start hunting monsters next.
Ghost and monster projects are what happens when legislators who have zero technical competence but maximum greed are given the power of the pork barrel. They have gazillions worth of infrastructure to allocate every year, but no idea what to do with it. If legislators were made to stick to the unexciting and unprofitable work of legislating, we would be left with people who only make laws and not be involved in infrastructure and doleouts. Unfortunately for the Philippines, our legislators have legislated themselves some pretty nice powers that allow them to creatively partake of the bounties of our nation’s coffers. Getting them to undo that would be the same as getting them to pass that anti-dynasty law that they’ve been ignoring despite being a requirement of the Constitution that they swore to serve.
The thing about ghosts and monsters and all things evil is that according to the lore, there is usually a hero, or a group of heroes, that saves the world. We have established that the evil has taken deep and persistent roots in this country, which means that the heroism required might have to be supernatural. Our challenge is finding those modern day Filipino heroes who are willing to fight for our cause, giving them the support they need to gain the upper hand, just so our nation and its future has a chance to finally turn the tide.
Do our countrymen have what it takes to defeat this evil that has taken over our nation?*
