THE UN Development Program reported in 2004 that $1.8 billion, or about 13% of the government’s annual budget is lost to corruption, said Sen. Chiz Escudero recently.
“On the average, around P300 billion is lost through the BIR and the BOC. Why? Officials or employees of these agencies exercise discretion. In my book, discretion in government offices is equal to corruption. Minimize discretion and you minimize corruption. Eliminate discretion and you eliminate corruption. Sadly, Arroyo’s administration has gone without any reform in these areas,” Escudero said in his SONA-SANA series.
The senator also said that, according to the 2008-2009 Global Competitiveness Report, corruption has been identified as the most problematic factor for doing business in the country.
“We also ranked very low in these sub-categories: diversion of public funds; public trust in politicians; favoritism; and wastefulness of government spending. All of these underscore the fact that in the eight years that Arroyo was head of state, we nose-dived into oblivion,” he said.
He also added that the corruption scandals and controversies that plagued Arroyo’s administration have projected the country as one of the most corrupt in the world.
At the EJAP forum last week, Escudero also laid down his six-point socio-economic agenda which emphasizes agriculture self-sufficiency, lower costs of doing business, investments in education, and infrastructure development.
“The goal is the creation of millions of new jobs and livelihood opportunities. This would necessitate being able to successfully attract much greater amounts of direct investments, especially foreign investments,” Escudero explained.
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