Corruption in rehabilitation of Pangasinan

There is no surprise in hearing about the use of substandard construction materials with substandard work and substandard finishing in public infrastructure projects.

Such scenarios have been so commonplace that when a project is actually done according to the correct standards, we hear bragging about its “world-class quality”, as if the regular Filipino quality is in fact poorer, cheaper, and generally worse.

Everyone knows the reason why. The use of below-standard materials and sloppy work is a means to cut corners so that funds budgeted for the project that is supposed to benefit the public could be diverted to under-the-table slips that benefit them – contractors in the construction industry and the public servants involved in implementing the project.

By our last count, project cost estimates are either overpriced or casually stripped of its costs by as much as 30 per cent by to line the pockets of sponsoring politicians or technocrats, voucher and check signatories for the project.   

So there is a lesson to be learned from Binmaley Central Elementary School and Binmaley North Central School where Mayor Simplicio Rosario has put his foot down and said “stop!” to the contractors whom he found to be using substandard materials.

Rosario, being an engineer/contractor-turned-politician, must very well know the workings in the public infrastructure arena. Calling for a halt to the much-needed reconstruction job to avoid future risks on the safety of both the schoolchildren and the public school teachers and administration is a demonstration of political will and long-term vision.

And it would do well for other town and cities in the province, where all of the schools have been heavily devastated by Typhoon Cosme and thus undergoing or requiring repairs, for their mayors to take on the example set by Rosario.

It’s no secret that a great number of the province’s mayors are either directly or indirectly involved with contractors doing business with the government, if they are not the contractors themselves, hence they know what is at stake.

The last thing Pangasinan needs right now, or at any time in the future, as it reels from the wreckage of the calamity is another disaster — resulting from natural causes made worse by human greed —that could be averted if only our local government leaders would flex their muscles against the deeply-rooted corruption besetting public infrastructure initiatives.

Corruption never fails to rear its ugly head with each calamity. Who will cut its head?

Rosario did this time.  Is there no one else?

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