JULY 30, 1927 — Representative Confesor of Iloilo, on July 21, kept his colleagues at the lower house speechless and open-mouthed while for nearly an hour he charged various departments of the government with scandalous waste of public money.
His sensational allegations had for a fitting climax a concrete revelation regarding the waste of money in the construction of the Laoag-Vintar dam in Ilocos Norte. He then introduced a resolution calling for a “thorough and ruthless” investigation of the entire affair in order to “determine the individual responsible for the waste of public funds in the construction of the dam.”
“I believe that each and every member of this house has learned that the dam which has cost the government about P272,000 has been completely demolished by floods and every cent of the P272,000 has gone to waste,” the Iloilo solon concluded his address.
“There must be no delay,” urged The Herald of July 23, “in the adoption of the Confesor resolution instructing the public works committee of the house of representatives to probe the repeated failure of the Laoag-Vintar Irrigation system, resulting in the loss to the government of staggering amounts of public money.
“While under construction,” this daily continued, “the dam was washed away by floods. The bureau of public works then amended the plans, but the contractor refused to proceed with the work on the [ground] that as amended the pains were still defective. The bureau then undertook to do the work but the dam was again destroyed by the floods.”
Insistent that those at fault should be duly punished, The Herald concluded: “The Philippine legislature has always been very liberal in appropriating large sums of money for public works. This is the time to determine how far the people can trust the present personnel of the bureau of public works in the expenditure of moneys appropriated for the construction of permanent improvements in the future.
Hoping for an early action on the resolution by the legislature, The Tribune of July 23 had the following to say:
“The legislature, we hope, will leave no stone unturned in the investigation of the supposed mismanagements of government funds in the construction of the Laoag-Vintar irrigation system, or the supposed inefficiency in the technical direction of this important project.
“Representative Tomas Confesor is to be congratulated for his [noble] presentation of his side of the controversy over this question. A thorough inquiry into the causes of the failure of the dam to withstand the elements and into other [phases] of the question should result in throwing more light on what appears to be an unnecessary loss of public moneys.
“If there is doubt as to the causes of the disaster, the investigation should clarify it, and set [to] right matters now under suspicion.” —Vicente Albano Pacis
NOTE: This article first appeared in the July 30, 1927 issue of the Graphic (Vol. 1, No. 5) as part of the magazine’s Weekly Editorial Digest.
