(We yield this space to the statement of Infrawatch PH due to its significance. – Ed.)
WE NOTE with grave concern the repeated caveats of President Rodrigo Duterte on the disclosure of names of congressmen and Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) district engineers in alleged corrupt activities in infrastructure projects.
While we have previously called on the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission to disclose the names of legislators involved in alleged corrupt activities, this disclosure presupposes completed staff work and full vetting of information on personalities and their activities.
As admitted by the President himself, the information disclosed on Monday night has not yet been fully vetted by authorities. As a result, this unvetted disclosure unfairly prejudges named legislators and district engineers and tarnishes the integrity of Congress and the DPWH.
Worse, this puts the President in an unnecessary and awkward collision course with Congress on the basis of unvetted information.
To be clear: everyone involved in corruption in infrastructure projects should be made accountable, whether before the courts or before the public. But this cannot be done without full, vetted information confirming, at least on the level of probable cause, the involvement of personalities in alleged corrupt activities, as this may lead to a host of unnecessary outcomes, if the allegations are easily proven as false.
Aside from destroying the reputation of named personalities, the disclosure can be used as a platform for local partisan politics and settling political scores.
Ultimately, unvetted disclosures proven false diminish the integrity of the President’s anti-corruption effort, as this may be no more than a witch hunt for specific personalities rather than systemically plugging opportunities for corruption in infrastructure projects.
But the most important question is this: What is there to gain in supplying the President unvetted information for public disclosure? Pa-pogi points?
