Is Marcos Jr. Looking for His Napoles?

By Joey Salgado

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is doubling down on his pledge, made during his fourth State of the Nation Address (SONA), to dig deeper into sub-standard or non-existent flood control projects awarded by his administration to several contractors, some of them with deep, rewarding ties to prominent legislators.

At a rare press conference in Malacañang, the President expressed shock at the results of the “disturbing assessment” that 15 contractors cornered nearly 20 per cent of the P545 billion earmarked for flood control. He then inspected several projects, among them a “ghost” flood control project in Bulacan fully paid for but with no work done. The President told the press corps he was not only disappointed but angry. Imagine if all the projects were implemented faithfully, he mused, it would have provided relief to our people.

Imagine also, Mr. President, if the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), did its job.

As I write this, the President has yet to fire the Public Works Secretary, an old hand at the DPWH who appears to be as surprised as the President by the scandalous revelations. It thus makes you question the sincerity of Marcos Jr.’s much hyped Cabinet reset. It also makes you think that all the Power Point decks and the site inspections are just part of a deflection game, driven more by the need for political resurrection than an honest effort to weed out corruption in public works.

The DPWH, after all, is the implementing agency for these projects. The department identifies projects in their yearly budget submission to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM). They define the scope of work, deliverables, the timeline, and award the projects to bidders in a supposedly transparent process. The DPWH inspects the project, and certifies if a project has been completed and the contractor eligible for payment. And the Public Works Secretary, theoretically, advises the President if insertions were made by Congress to his department’s budget and recommends either approval or veto.

The Napoles template

The President, however, is obsessing on contractors and their backers in Congress.

If this sound familiar, it is. In 2013, during the second Aquino administration, a scandal involving members of Congress and Janet Lim-Napoles led to the arrest and imprisonment of Napoles and several senators, and the filing of corruption cases against members of the House. The scandal came to be known as the Napoles pork barrel scam.

The senators - Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Bong Revilla - and the congressmen were accused of receiving hefty kickbacks from ghost livelihood projects funded by their Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF). Estimates of government losses to the scam has been placed at around P10 billion.

Compared to the unfolding flood control scam, that’s small change.

But how far will the President go, now that the public is crying for blood?

Will he stop at flood control projects or will he take on roads, bridges, and other “hard” projects as well? Will he zero in on the DPWH and ignore reports of widespread corruption in other agencies of government? And after the shame campaign, will he pursue the Napoles template and file charges against contractors and legislators, most, if not all, of them his political allies?

Wielding the big stick

Public works and congressional insertions are low-hanging fruits for controversies and crusades. Conveniently, they provide an easy narrative of collusion to raid the public money, of undermining the President and his reform agenda. Here, the President is as much a victim as the people. But he is the President after all. He wields the big stick and holds the bigger microphone. And you don’t mess with this President.

The narrative’s dilemma, however, presents itself.

At the start of his administration, the President, according to sources, ceded the political grunt work to his cousin, the Speaker, and with it, the only tool for the chief executive to exact loyalty. While Congress is a co-equal branch, in practice no congressional disbursements are made without the president’s approval. And releases are tied to their support for the president’s agenda. The President, however, left the House alone, with little or no oversight from Malacañang. As long as they pass the bills and consolidate the supermajority, everything was fine. But the ground shifted after the midterm election debacle. An autonomous Congress became a liability. In the view of the President’s advisers, Congress, both the Senate and the House, was pulling down his satisfaction numbers and credibility.

The President has reached the point of no return. He cannot, and apparently will not, retreat. And he must not be seen as waffling or being selective. The filing of charges against contractors and even his allies will support the newly-minted image of a no-nonsense, anti-corruption President. On the plus side, corruption will be top of mind going into the 2028 presidential election, piercing Vice President Sara Duterte’s electability.

But the Aquino slogan “kung walang corrupt walang mahirap” has been exposed as a reductionist philosophy of governance. Yes, corruption is, and has always been a problem that needs to be addressed decisively. The people also expect efficiency, empathy, and authenticity from their leaders.

This article also appears in Rappler