ONE TRILLION

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile once made a mind-boggling revelation that the Aquino government then had been given by Congress almost PhP 1 trillion since it took over from Ferdinand Marcos. He demanded to know where this amount went.

The mere mention of the amount is awesome, and yet under the Cory regime, the country remained one of the poorest nations in the world and has been referred to as the "basket case of Asia."

Enrile asked where the roads, bridges, schools, public markets, hospitals and other forms of infrastructure that should have been built from that staggering sum were.

And now, Noynoy Aquino has the nerve to ask this equally-inept administration where the so-called roads are.

Many say a big chunk of the outlay helped build those posh residences of certain officials in Makati, Alabang, and in Hillsborough and Atherton in the Bay Area, or are now safely deposited in US, Swiss or the Cayman Islands' secret bank accounts.

Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago had stressed in many speeches that at least 40 percent of government funds had gone into the pockets of corrupt officials. That should particularly answer JPE's query on how the trillion bucks had been spent.

(Image from http://www.pcij.org/)