About accountability

WE commemorate this week the anniversary of People Power, an event that earned us Filipinos the world’s salute for our peaceful but determined struggle against a 20-year dictatorship. It would be fitting to remember that one of the driving forces that brought people to EDSA in 1986 was the spirit of exhaustion over a government that for so long thought and acted without accountability to the nation. People Power was a stand against corruption. “Tama na, sobra na” was one of the drumming slogans of that revolution.

Today, 26 years later, we are still fighting for good – national and local – government. It does seem to be taking so long and the Filipino people do feel the frustration most times. But there are pockets of hope, especially with reports of how some agencies such as the Commission on Audit (COA) is living up to its role as the watcher and inspector of how our public servants are spending the people’s money. A case in point is COA’s recent memo to the Dagupan City administration on P26.5 million worth of funds in 2011 which apparently had no legal basis because these were used without the proper authorization from the local council. The COA report, though not accusatory, raised the question of transparency over the actions of city hall officials.

Auditing, a most tedious task, provides clues and produces proof of whether public funds are being conscientiously disbursed or squandered. With proof, corrupt officials can be made accountable in the judicial courts for their crimes against the people. And while it is also a reality that the legal process could be as tedious as the accounting, what’s important is to get the wheels of justice rolling.

In the meantime, the democratic system that we won from EDSA has given us other avenues for licking corruption – the elections, a free media, which together form the court of public opinion where we can freely shout: Tama na, sobra na.

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Damaged goods

GUILTY or not, Chief Justice Renato Corona may already be damaged goods.

While he might still find vindication at the end of the trial, his image was definitely tarnished from Day 1 of the impeachment proceedings rightly or wrongly.

Whether he will regret choosing to duke it out is a question only he can answer fully, satisfactorily. Was it worth it?

We can only sympathize with him.  While some find his position already untenable today and believe that the option of resignation is the only respectable way out, still there are others, particularly in the judiciary, who insist that he must stay in the ring for the sake of the institution. But what of the Chief Justice himself and a battered Supreme Court?

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