Whistleblowing in the wind

I have nothing more to say, said Romulo Neri over the weekend. The former NEDA director general and economic planning secretary is an outspoken fellow and it is his outspokenness which led him to disclose his discomfort on the NBN deal to his friends and acquaintances. His friends believed he would disclose all he knew given the right forum and if pressed hard enough.

Their belief was unfounded. For very often, in our day-to-day dealings with government officials, we hear complaints and stories of scandals and wrongdoing, and when we finally ask them whether they are ready to attest to such claims officially, they say no. I, for one, in the course of work in the energy and environment sectors, have heard many tall tales about the highest officials of the land. Unfortunately, my friends and acquaintances in government are willing whistleblowers only when they are whistleblowing in the wind.When the time comes for them to prove they have a backbone, they invariably ask, rhetorically, “You are willing to take care of my family?” Of course, what can I possibly say? And there are also more difficult questions, such as, “when I’m no longer around, who will give you the lowdown on what’s happening?” This last is a question I heard very recently in regard to procurement of fuel supplies. If you or I were in their place, what would we really do"? Could we be as sanctimonious?

Let me first get this out of the way. I am totally disgusted with some commentators who have taunted Romulo Neri about his personal life and preferences because of their disappointment over his behavior. While I can understand their frustration, that is no excuse for lack of decency in the struggle to get at the truth, or the closest approximation to it.

I understand the disappointment of Solita Monsod over Neri’s resort to ‘executive privilege’ over questions beyond his conversation with Comelec chair Benjamin Abalos. But she is most probably wrong in her assertion that he did his boss a disservice, especially if feeding us only the convenient truths was on her orders. After all, we all know that leaders can be myopic, and what we really don’t know is how myopic they can be.

Professors Emmanuel de Dios and Raul Fabella were more circumspect in their analysis, prefacing their paper with the perception of the president’s wish to leave a legacy and contrasting this with the reality of the obvious flaws of the NBN project. Their ciriticisms were also very constructive and could lead to genuine reforms through legislation.

Perhaps it was because of Fabella’s priestly airs and the appearance of de Dios as his willing acolyte that on Thursday last week, there was a palpable sense of a serious discussion going on between the Senate and the country’s respected academics. The senators seemed afraid to be exposed as ignorant boors before the guests. In the previous hearing, they had acted as boorish ignoramuses before hapless guests from the executive, even if that was because the executive did send its representatives to be slaughtered to save the boar, and maybe the bitch.