PAPER VIEW
By ATTY. MEL STA. MARIA
Atty. Mel Sta. Maria
The signs are discouraging at this time when the country has barely moved into 2019.
This year’s national budget has not yet been passed. Questions had been raised concerning allocations in the previous budget allegedly favoring corporations owned by people close to high government officials in particular provinces. Accusations are bandied about that commissions amounting to P81 million pesos were given to a cabinet member’s in-laws. In the present budget being deliberated, P75 billion pesos have been inserted in the DPWH budget allegedly favoring certain politicians. And the inquiry still continues.
Coming up with a national budget becomes complicated and unfair only for one reason: the process is infected by the scourge of private, not public, interest. Budgeting is supposed to allocate the country’s scarce resources and limited financial capability to well-chosen national priorities. Making sure that this is done is the responsibility of the legislature. But since the congressional process involves a lot of politics and, to many, is corrupted by politicians, the money ends up misallocated. And judging from the country’s experience with “pork barrels,” staggering amounts are further misdirected to the personal pockets of elected and appointed officials conniving with crooks in the private sector. It seems that this obnoxious practice does not see any end in sight.
Another disturbing development was Secretary Locsin’s original revelation that the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and its staff “are rebuilding our files from scratch because previous outsourced passport maker took all the data when contract terminated." The message was alarming. He corrected that tweet later by alluding to some lesser situation of inaccessibility. He then made another tweet:"The data is useless to the old contractor. It is a question of official stupidity or more likely cupidity."One can just imagine the exasperation of Secretary Locsin on this “official stupidity.” Be that as it may, the episode is an eye-opener.
If the unauthorized data-taking indeed happened, personal private information may fall into the hands of criminals who can illegally use them. Make no mistake about it,identity theft is already happening in the Philippines. In a case decided by the Supreme Court, a foreigner was able to illegally access a Filipina’s information, use all her personal data, and obtain a marriage certificate indicating the woman as his wife. Upon discovery, the woman was horrified because she did not know the man at all, never talked to him, much less met him. She filed a petition to cancel the marriage certificate but the Office of the Solicitor General opposed, arguing that the proper case should be a petition to declare the marriage void which was costly. Fortunately, the Supreme Court ordered the civil registry to simply cancel the marriage certificate and spare the woman from spending unnecessarily. You could just imagine the unauthorized use of stolen-identities in transactions and agreements more onerous and expensive than a marriage contract. It will be disastrous.
And what about this talk of re-examining the Mutual Defense Treaty with the United States to determine whether to “maintain it, strengthen it, or scrap it” according to Defense Secretary Lorenzana? The idea is good except that scrapping the MDT should not be made an option. Security and defense treaties with other countries are not automatically anathema to a country’s sovereignty. The Philippines must be smart enough in using or invoking the MDT.
Article Vof the MDT provides that “an armed attack on either of the Parties is deemed to include an armed attack on the metropolitan territory of either of the Parties, or on the island territories under its jurisdiction in the Pacific or on its armed forces, public vessels or aircraft in the Pacific.” That treaty-obligation could have been used by the Philippines as a strong leverage against China in asserting compliance with the comprehensive West Philippine Sea decision which the Philippines won. What is worrying now is that, with the Duterte administration’s predilection favoring China, the scrapping of the MDT might just be the strongest motivation for the re-examination. I hope not.
The second three-year period of the Duterte Administration is about to start. Where is the nation at this point? Has there been enough foundation built to stop corruption or recover from corrupt politicians ill-gotten wealth sourced from previous budgets? Do we feel safe about the security of our personal information in the government’s possession? Is the Philippines becoming territorially “smaller”? Is the Duterte administration starting off on the wrong foot again?