EDITORIAL - 200 years for graft

Fourteen years to the day 58 people were massacred in Maguindanao, the ringleader and mastermind, Andal Ampatuan Jr. was convicted yesterday, this time for 21 counts of graft, and sentenced to a total of up to 201 years in prison.

Ampatuan is already serving his sentence in connection with the massacre, which was carried out to eliminate a convoy of relatives and supporters of his rival for the governor’s post in Maguindanao. In the convoy were 32 media workers.

His latest conviction is for the purchase of fuel by the Maguindanao government from Ampatuan’s gas station in Shariff Aguak, when his father Andal Sr. was the provincial governor. The Sandiganbayan’s Sixth Division found that there was no bidding for the fuel supply arrangement, and funds were released even for undelivered petrol. The fuel was supposed to be used in connection with road rehabilitation projects, but a Commission on Audit team found that none of the projects was completed.

Each graft count carries a penalty of six to seven years. With all his convictions, Ampatuan is expected to spend the rest of his life behind bars. His conviction for multiple counts of graft, on the 14th anniversary of the worst case of election violence in this country and the world’s worst single attack on journalists, is a welcome development.

What would be even more welcome is if lessons from the graft cases will lead to long-lasting structural reforms in governance. The informal arrangement between the Maguindanao government and the private business of the governor’s relative is hardly unique. Across the country, private enterprises are so intricately intertwined with politics, especially in areas controlled by entrenched dynasties.

The system of accountability designed into the governance structure is useless when the officials who are supposed to provide checks and balances to each other are first-degree relatives. And such situations, instead of becoming the exception, are rapidly becoming the norm across the country, with the political dynasts even taking pride in it.

Andal Ampatuan Jr. faces about 200 years for the sale of fuel from his gas station to the provincial government headed at the time by his