The five-hour hearing of the Senate blue ribbon committee into the questionable purchase of laptops for public school teachers worth P2.4 billion by the Department of Education and the Procurement Service of the Department of Budget and Management (PS-DBM), which was flagged by state auditors for being “pricey but outdated” had officials from the government agencies involved owning up to the costly errors.
Several senators believed that the lapses were too glaring to be blamed on mere carelessness, with Senators JV Ejercito and Risa Hontiveros pointing out that the PS-DBM had already been involved in highly anomalous government purchase contracts.
Hontiveros noted that the Commission on Audit had put to task the PS-DBM for its questionable purchases for other state agencies, such as the multibillion peso deals for the government’s pandemic supplies that were awarded to the notorious, but now conveniently forgotten, Pharmally Pharmaceutical Corp.
Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, who filed the resolution seeking an inquiry into the controversy, had a strange choice of words to describe the public officials behind the procurement project, saying they didn’t commit an honest mistake, but “honest corruption.”
The ease at which government officials make “mistakes” that result in high-stakes corruption should be worrying Filipino taxpayers who provide the funds for these corruption scandals that have seen to become the norm among government agencies in recent years.
Are DepEd and PS-DBM officials involved going to be allowed to get away with this, in the same way the Senate blue ribbon committee on the Pharmally debacle that involved billions upon billions of our money also ended with a quiet whimper?
Is government going to take corruption seriously or do Filipinos just have to learn to live with this thing called “honest corruption”?*
