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Justice Secretary Hernando Perez—and the entire Arroyo administration—may think that it’s all over.

They are mistaken. The flap over the “million-dollar man” is likely to have repercussions in 2004 and the fortunes of the Arroyo administration. It also adds to the general erosion of faith in the capacity not only of this government but of all other Philippine governments to ever really be accountable to the people that put them in power.

The same incident doesn’t say much for the Arroyo administration’s supposed commitment to the making of a “strong republic” either. The attempt to get the Villarama speech and the reactions it provoked (among them from the House and Senate opposition) out of the public sphere and into the backrooms of Philippine politics, where the usual compromises and deals can be made, suggests that despite administration rhetoric, it’s still business as usual.

In her July 2002 State of the Nation address, in which she launched the campaign for a “strong republic” (a misnomer, as this column has said many times), Mrs. Arroyo said the Republic is weak because government is the captive of narrow political, class and sectoral interests.

She was right, of course, though she wasn’t the first person in this country to say this, virtually all political scientists of any repute having arrived at that conclusion decades ago. The correctness of her analysis, however, did not lead her to the appropriate conclusion. The obvious conclusion was to rescue the government from that captivity by decision-making free from political, familiar or personal ifs, buts or maybes.

That would mean that national interest would be the first, last and only bases in decision-making, among them appointments to critical posts and policymaking. Instead of doing the obvious, however, Mrs. Arroyo further empowered an already powerful police and military by, among others, making the once ministerial act of permits for public demonstrations discretionary on the part of the police, and giving the military carte blanche in the anti-insurgency campaign.

This empowerment did nothing to address the basic reason why the Philippine state is so weak and ineffectual. On the contrary. In case after case, whenever her political allies and cronies have been accused of involvement in wrongdoing, she has chosen to either ignore or belittle the accusations as politically motivated, which they cannot all be.

The result has been business as usual, in which even the most serious charges are ignored or swept under the rug. In the present instance, for example, it would seem that there is basis enough for an investigation and, after that, acting upon the results, whatever those may be.

Perez has said that he would coordinate with Villarama in evaluating the documents Villarama has in his possession so the National Bureau of Investigation can look into who exactly is the Cabinet member who has the two-million-dollar account in Hong Kong’s Coutts Bank.

Perez’s announcement, however, came almost at the same time that NBI Director Reynaldo Wycoco expressed the utmost reluctance to investigate the Villarama claims, and to announce at a Senate hearing that he would do so only if the Villarama documents are in his possession.

And yet, as Senate President Franklin Drilon said, there is basis enough for the NBI to go ahead with an investigation anyway, considering the gravity of Villarama’s claims. Other countries serious in their campaign to root out corruption would not only investigate; they’re likely to suspend suspected wrongdoers on even flimsier evidence.

Arroyo administration officials are also supposed to be undergoing a lifestyle check à la Hong Kong practice. If the Arroyo administration is serious about this initiative, it should equally be serious about looking into all allegations of wrongdoing.

Wycoco’s reluctance is thus odd at the least, if not suspiciously suggestive that he’s trying to protect something or someone. His boss, the secretary of justice, could have made us all sleep better at night if he had said that he would recommend an agency other than the NBI, which is directly under his supervision, to investigate Villarama’s charges.

An NBI investigation into the charges would necessarily include looking into opposition claims—and nagging public suspicion—that Perez was the Cabinet member Villarama was alluding to. He may or may not be the million-dollar man, but without an investigation the suspicion that he is will remain. Only an impartial investigation can clear Perez, and restore an iota of faith in government among the public.

However, the results of any NBI investigation, especially if it finds that Perez is indeed not the Cabinet member alluded to, will be of no value in the present circumstances. There is already every indication that those results—if any investigation does take place—will be as predicted.

Congressman Willie Villarama, a member of the administration coalition in the House, met with Perez the other day and, according to Perez, assured him that he was not alluding to the justice secretary.

“It was a pure misunderstanding,” said Perez, which is all well and good—but only as far as the relationship between him and Villarama is concerned. The seriousness of Villarama’s claims makes sweeping them under the rug—the message the “we made up” statement of Perez implies—exactly the kind of thing that turns citizens into cynics, and makes people like Sen. Panfilo Lacson credible and popular.

Perez and Villarama may have made up, but that does not answer the obvious questions Filipinos should be asking. The first is who the million-dollar man is, and why Perez, when Villarama delivered his privileged speech, should have felt alluded to.

Villarama also seemed cocksure about whom he was talking about both in his privileged speech and in his later statements. Why then did he not name names, as Perez had demanded? Villarama’s answer was that he had only an account number and the name of the Hong Kong bank, and information from an unnamed witness. Why then did he bring it up at all?

Villarama’s request (in the aftermath of Perez’s challenge for him to name names) that his witness be put in the Department of Justice’s Witness Protection Program is, on the other hand, as suspicious as Wycoco’s reluctance. It suggests an effort, after things had been discussed in private, to put out the fire he had started and to divert attention from Perez. As Perez said, the fact that Villarama asked for his help means that Villarama could not have possibly been alluding to him.

That the entire thing is likely to go the way of other scandals that have rocked this administration—under the rug of official collusion—may suggest that all those involved will get away with it. After all, the public is pretty much resigned to the persistence of government venality, and Filipinos do forget, especially the details of this scandal or that.

What does remain in their collective consciousness, however, is the sense that no government has ever been within a kilometer of the honesty, efficiency and plain compliance with the promises it makes when asking for the votes of the electorate.

This would be especially true of the Arroyo government, which came to power in 2001 on a promise of transparent and honest governance, but whose approval ratings have been declining as a result of, among others, widespread suspicion of runaway corruption.

To erode that perception will require credible responses to cases such as Villarama’s charges rather than brazen attempts to paper them over. It won’t hurt the “strong republic” hype either, and might even suggest that Mrs. Arroyo is serious about it, and not just making noises she thinks the public wants to hear.

(Today, abs-cbnNEWS.com, November 16, 2002)

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