Protecting whistle-blowers

Juan Mercado, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Asia News Network, Manila

The litmus test to determine if governments tackle graft seriously is how well they protect "whistle-blowers."

"Governments must create an environment that encourages, instead of penalizing, citizens who denounce venality," declared 135 countries -- the Philippines included -- at the 9th International Anti-Corruption Conference in Durham, South Africa.

Recent high-profile cases abroad illustrate how whistle- blowers curb corporate crimes or government blunders.

Enron's multibillion-dollar accounting pyramids were blown up by a letter from employee Sherron Watkins. Agent Cynthia Cooper ripped apart the FBI's lapse in ignoring tips about a 9/11 plotter in Florida. And Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers, leading to the reexamination of the Vietnam war.

These happen when whistle-blowers have institutional protection against retaliation. Thus, South Africa has a Protected Disclosure Law. The U.S. Labor Department safeguards, by federal law, those who expose malfeasance.

Individual states like Illinois have "whistle-blower" ordinances.

How about us? Acsa Ramirez whipped out a whistle on a tax scam at Land Bank. Instead of being protected, Ramirez found herself presented as one of the crooks, by President Macapagal-Arroyo, no less, and by the inept National Bureau of Investigation agents.

Angry sustained protests -- some from this paper -- erupted over this gross injustice. Government grudgingly backtracked. Loss of face was deemed more important than fairness. This squelches future "whistle-blowers."

Here, protection for those who oppose venality is sporadic. Cebu City's General Services Office chief Rolando Ardosa refused to accept questionable dump trucks, bought by Mayor Tomas Osmeqa's administration for P19.7 million. City officials let Ardosa twist in the wind when Pasajero Motors Corp. (Pasamor) sued, claiming delays.

It was Regional Deputy Ombudsman Primo Miro who gave substance to the Durham Statement. He scrapped the suit, noting his office earlier approved graft investigator Gaudencio Melendez's findings: That three of the six "brand new" trucks were allegedly reconditioned vehicles -- fitted with old, modified and fabricated parts "whose workmanship is below standard."

Pasamor trucks were, in fact, "being investigated by this office in a separate docket," the Ombudsman wrote. "It was prudent for Ardosa to defer signing the acceptance of the dump trucks until the whole matter was clarified."

Suppose the Ombudsman's ongoing probe backfires on Cebu. City Hall didn't wait to find out. Pasamor executive Franklin Ong, however, is Mayor Osmeqa's avid fan. Department of Engineering and Public Works' Jerome Ang accepted his dump trucks, "despite the absence of Ardosa's signature."

"Every failure to recover proceeds of corruption," the Durham Statement warns, "feeds its growth." And our record of "whistle- blowing" incidents is mixed.

Remember Rear Adm. Guillermo Wong? This ramrod-straight Philippine Military Academy graduate wrote a thesis on "Norms of Honor." It was a study on the standards of ethical conduct by Philippine Navy officers.

Wong used those standards in denouncing Marine purchases of thin Kevlar helmets and malfunctioning HK-MP5 assault rifles. Only the amount of P266 was left from a P64.9 million allocation for a Marine base. But roads, sewage and electrical systems, etc. were non existent.

The admiral, his critics sneered in retaliation, was a "compulsive whiner," even as a cadet. He often "did the right things the Wong way." The brass shoved Wong into "floating status." That's an office table with a solitary telephone connected to nowhere. The Navy's Office of Ethical Standards, nonetheless, admitted "a prima facie case existed" on the worthless tin helmets, missing machine guns and Marine base funds.

Alert auditors are effective "whistle-blowers." The Commission on Audit's Helen Hilayo revealed that Mayor Osmeqa's yen loans, in City Halls books, were "understated" -- a polite word for "doctored" -- by a whooping P1,713,999,988. That's almost two- thirds of the city's annual budget.

To be a watchdog for the public, the press is given flak jackets by the Constitution. Some of us do the job well. Others play lapdogs for the powerful.

"The press is a frail vessel for the hopes it is meant to bear," London Times editor Harry Evans wrote. "The best it can do is never enough to illuminate the invisible environment, the complexity of forces that we cannot monitor for ourselves but affect our lives."

Providing legal bulwarks and incentives for whistle-blowers is a task our new Congress could usefully take on. "Corruption bears with special cruelty on the poor," the Durham Statement asserts. "It destroys confidence in democracy and the legitimacy of government."