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President Gloria Arroyo may indeed be the most corrupt president the country has ever had, based on amounts lost to the Filipino people in just six corruption scandals over her seven years in office, said independent think-tank IBON Foundation.

The six scandals, which include the fertilizer fund scam, the Jose Pidal bank accounts, the Northrail project, the IMPSA power plant project, the poll automation project and the Macapagal Boulevard project, have collectively cost the Filipino people some P7.3 billion.

These amounts could have been used to provide badly-needed education and health services to millions of impoverished Filipinos. For example, it could have been used to help the Department of Education (DepEd) bridge its resource gaps of classrooms, textbooks and teachers. According to DepEd figures, its 2008 budget is still P8.43 billion short in order to bridge its resource gaps for the year. It could also have been used to increase subsidies for indigent patients in government hospitals such as the Philippine General Hospital.

These cases also indicate the Arroyo administration’s high tolerance for corruption, since none of them has ever been satisfactorily resolved. In fact, the Ombudsman only filed graft and corruption charges against former Justice Secretary Hernando Perez in January 2007 or six years after the charges were made public. Perez allegedly received a US$2 million bribe so that the Department of Justice would give the go-ahead for a US$470 million contract to IMPSA for rehabilitation of the CBK hydroelectric plant in Laguna.

Clearly, corruption is inherent in a liberalized backward economy and has greatly benefited the Arroyo administration for the past seven years, while it continues to worsen the incidence of poverty and deny much-needed social services to millions of Filipinos. (end)

IBON Foundation, Inc. is an independent development institution established in 1978 that provides research, education, publications, information work and advocacy support on socioeconomic issues.

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