Manila: Local government executives continue to top the list of officials facing graft cases.
Referring to the report by the anti-graft watchdog, the Office of the Ombudsman, Senator Aquilino Pimentel said investigations must be carried out on why there is widespread corruption taking place in mid-level government bureaucracy.
“Almost every week there is a story about local government executives — incumbent or retired — being indicted for corruption by the Ombudsman,” Pimentel, chair of the Senate’s oversight committee on local governments, said.
A recent published report by the Ombudsman Office categorised local government units (LGUs); or elective posts from governors, mayors down to the level of councillors as well as members of the bureaucracy, as “Number 1” on the watchdog’s graft list.
Local government executives are followed by members of the Philippine National Police (PNP) in the list of authorities charged with the most number of cases before the Ombudsman’s office.
The scorecard showed that in 2014, for the fourth straight year, mayors and other local executives again topped the list of public officials who faced graft complaints, with 2,053 cases filed by the Ombudsman.
Pimentel said while those figures are an improvement from a high of 3,854 cases in 2011, the number still showed the serious extent of the problem that has been the No. 1 subject of complaints by the public and investors planning to do business before the LGUs.
In 2014, 1,258 cases were filed against PNP personnel.
Pimentel said businessmen, both foreign and local, had always been complaining about the cost of doing business in the country due to bureaucratic red tape.
Business entities transacting business with LGUs often demand “facilitation fees” in exchange for quick action on their requests.
Pimentel said there is a need to institute enduring structural reforms to cut red tape and ease doing business in LGUs, by simplifying procedures and promoting transparency in local government transactions, among others.
Likewise he also stressed the need to further improve the system to stop local officials from turning localities into their private turfs, and eliminate the temptation of violation of laws because of personal and vested interests.
