I WRITE this piece to add to the many voices and written pieces hailing the good, the true and the wonderful that have risen out of the deadly scum that threatens to drown this nation.
This hurried piece may not sound like a piece of erudition but I write this to humbly and personally say, “Thank you, Heidi Mendoza.” Thank you for braving the way in the wilderness, for shaking the fortress, for showing us how to be a Filipino patriot, for the unforgettable shining moment.
These past days I’ve been constantly hearing comments about the bad news hogging the headlines both in the print and the broadcast media. Where are the good news? Many demand to know. Surely there must be a lot out there, they say to my face. It’s as if we in the media have not been looking for the good news hard enough.But even from out of the bad news comes the good—such as the earth-shaking revelations of former government fraud auditor Heidi Mendoza of the Commission on Audit (COA) who shocked this nation with her detailed account of how millions in Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) funds were funneled to where they shouldn’t be, and in such a crass and craven way. How persons deliberately carried out their dark intentions. That’s not good news?
But it is. The good news here is the fact that one brave woman came out of the dark to tell the world what she knew, how she knew, why she knew. She was right there where this happened and she would have none of it. And so she eventually resigned in disgust despite the tempting gifts being dangled before her. But not before she had gotten a good grasp of the evil that was creeping and could point to damning evidence that would boost her suspicions and findings.
But, yes, credit must also go to former Ombudsman Simeon Marcelo who tapped Mendoza to help boost the plunder case against former Armed Forces of the Philippines comptroller Carlos F. Garcia. Marcelo’s work has indeed borne fruit and he, like his biblical namesake, can now chant the “Nunc Dimittis.”
Now, years later, here is Mendoza, springing on us everything that she knew and showing proofs of what she had discovered. She didn’t stumble on them accidentally, she had a specific job to do as the auditor assigned to the AFP. Mendoza could have easily gotten snared in the web of corruption inside a formidable institution whose leaders have long been under a cloud of doubt. She could have easily succumbed and done cover-up work.
As some auditors are reportedly wont to do. I have learned that some auditors who are assigned to government agencies conspire with the agencies’ personnel in shady activities and the pocketing of funds, even teaching the uninitiated a thing or two. Bantay-salakay, these people are called, and they should be tarred and feathered along with their accomplices and then marched down Commonwealth Avenue.
There are whistle-blowers who are credible because they were once participants in irregularities such as bribery, payola, kickbacks, etc. and are trying to come clean because they would be in hot water anyway, they fear for their lives or suddenly have a crisis of conscience. Mendoza is different. She had not helped herself to dirty money. She kept what she knew in her heart and waited for the right moment to come.
Bravery does not mean being unafraid. Mendoza is afraid, especially for her young children who she thinks she has put in harm’s way and who have yet to fully understand the significance of her brave act. She said so herself during the hearing at the House of Representatives as she pleaded for their safety and protection. One child suffered a mild heart attack, she said. Another asked if her mother really loved her children, else why would she put them under stress?
But bravery is not about being unafraid, it is about pushing the limits to do what is right and good and true despite one’s own fears and uncertainties. Then with one’s daring and resolve comes the grace of fortitude.
I could feel my blood rising to my face as I watched the hearing live on TV and on seeing Garcia, who is facing charges of plunder and who just might get away with a lighter sentence and keep much of his loot in unbelievable amounts, courtesy of the present Office of the Ombudsman that agreed to a plea bargain despite damning evidence. That was what the hearing was all about: how Garcia might get away with a plea bargain. Could this be reversed?
But more riveting than the plea bargain issue was Mendoza’s bombshell about missing funds in the millions, taken from the P200-million United Nations fund representing reimbursement for peacekeeping operations and equipment. This was explained in detail in Wednesday’s front page. This is not all that Garcia is being charged for.
It does not take a genius of an auditor to spot the red flags, as Mendoza called her unusual finds in the bank transactions, but it takes a dedicated person, a woman of true grit, to pursue the trail and find out where the red flags lead to and then declare: This is wrong, I will have none of this. I will expose this to the world because the Filipinos have the right to know.
Heidi Mendoza’s first name reminds me of the character in Johanna Spyri’s famous classic children’s story, “Heidi, the Girl from the Swiss Alps.” Might she have been named after the brave, precocious orphaned Alpine girl who brought sunshine and meaning to the lives of persons around her?
Mendoza now joins the ranks of whistle-blowers, Clarissa Ocampo among them, who have come forward to tell us about the bad, the ugly and the odorous and, in the process, became the good news themselves.
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