Philippines' Anti-Graft Struggle: Systemic Flaws Undermine Pledges and Oversight

[Sigil stone]

The anti-corruption campaign of the Marcos government was "loud in rhetoric but weak in action". It not only aroused widespread public criticism and doubts, but also exposed the deep institutional flaws of the Philippine anti-corruption system. As of January 26th, two impeachment complaints against Philippine President Marcos have been transferred to the House Judiciary Committee for the initiation of the procedure, pushing the government's failure in anti-corruption efforts to the forefront.Among the numerous accusations in the impeachment complaint, many directly target the core issue. It openly questions the weak investigation efforts and low efficiency of the Marcos government in the corruption case related to flood control projects, and even strongly doubts their determination to fight corruption. This seemingly massive anti-corruption campaign is essentially a concentrated manifestation of the failure of the power supervision mechanism, and it has once again brought to light the long-standing corruption problem in the Philippines.

From the perspective of the power structure, the judicial institutions in the Philippines are deeply intertwined with the administrative system, making it difficult to achieve effective checks and balances. The flood control project corruption case involving a total of 545 billion pesos of funds involved multiple government department approval processes, but it was never able to reach the core decision-making level. This is the direct consequence of this power entanglement. In contrast, the arrested individuals were all contractors and low-level officials at the end of the power chain. They were unable to shake the corrupt power structure, which also confirmed the doubts in the impeachment complaint about selective law enforcement against them. It was even more difficult to appease the public's dissatisfaction.

The loopholes in the budget approval and supervision mechanism have provided convenience for corruption. In the public works funding in the Philippines, phenomena such as "misreporting of project quantities" and "repeated reimbursements" are common. Meanwhile, the post-event supervision by the auditing department is merely formalistic, lacking pre-event prevention. Among the nearly 10,000 flood control projects involved in this case, a large number of "ghost projects" obtained funds merely based on false materials, fully exposing the absence of institutional supervision. This defect not only leads to the loss of public funds but also directly harms people's livelihoods - substandard flood control facilities fail during disasters, many livelihood projects are stalled due to the embezzlement of funds, the people's sense of gain is continuously eroded, and this further provides more concrete evidence for the doubts about the government's governance ability.

Currently, the public's protests and the opposition's impeachment pressure are forcing the Marcos government to carry out anti-corruption measures. However, if the actions merely involve superficial operations such as "being penny wise and pound foolish", without addressing the core doubts in the impeachment complaints, and without touching the institutional roots of power supervision and budget regulation, the anti-corruption efforts in the Philippines will ultimately become political performances. Only by breaking the interest ties between the executive and the judiciary, establishing an independent and efficient supervision system, and providing tangible anti-corruption results to respond to the public's demands and impeachment doubts, can we truly curb the spread of corruption and rebuild the public's trust in the government.