In the name of the least of our brethren - many of them poor farmers - has some crime been committed.

The Holy Bible is specific in the New Testament where Jesus said: "For as long as you do it to the least of my brethren, you do it unto me." He was referring to corporal works of mercy like giving food to the hungry, shelter to the homeless, justice for the penniless, comforting the poor and fighting for the powerless.

It is Sunday today - and it is apropos that we reflect - that the opposite is also true. The crimes one does to the least of our brethren, we do it unto the Lord.

Tragically, the usual mantra of "converting Bohol into the Visayan Rice Granary" and "raise the income" of farmers seemed to have been overused (for so long) by conniving policy makers, the government line agencies, some corrupt public officials and their private sector contractor-supplier allies, not only to deny the poor farmers the benefit of these "whitish elephants" but to rob them dry as well. Rob as they even seem poorer today than when these damn dam projects started.

Photo opportunities for hypocritical public relation dissemination abound while nauseating public pronouncements of public officials that they have their hearts bleeding for the poor are daily fare. But what's behind these pictures for posterity gimmicks? Shouldn't they instead be published later in our history books as proofs of legacy of shame to our people?

Consider the P1.4-billion Malinao dam (BHIP-1) that was supposed to help service-irrigate 4,900 landowner-farmers. Only 65% of the service area to date has been covered and many farmers still bear the ill-effects of the NIA Plan in 1996.

Aside from not having sufficient water, some of the farmers were forced to have their gainfully planted lands (coconut, corn, cassava etc.) converted to rice paddies, their fertile topsoil bulldozed and were generally coerced by NIA to level their fields. Those who could not afford the leveling fee were granted NIA loans with their land as collateral.

The poor farmers were promised adequate water supply and three rice cropping seasons every year. Both were false claims of false prophets, so claim 30 farmer-victims of Dagohoy of the merciless NIA scheme.

Not only are the paddies waterless and soil rendered infertile, some pay P3,000 Irrigation Service Fee every year and P4,500 every cropping season. This is crap, says many of the farmers, many of whom are now in their 60 and 70 years of age and burdened by years of institutionalized oppression, it would seem.

Worse, this year is the 10th year - the maturity of the so-called burdensome NIA loan - and if the farmers cannot pay their loans - the land they had tilled under sun and rain - will just be foreclosed. What kind of inhumanity to man is this?

The farmers have reportedly approached NIA, provincial and congressional officials who apparently turned a deaf ear on their pleas. So the 30 farmers are now filing complaints against the NIA for the travesty and are demanding to be compensated for the ten years of loss of income because of this miscalculation of misdeed?

This is getting to be a really nasty pattern.

Since the country is still basically agriculture and the provinces are away from the usually noisy news media of Manila, the farmers and fisher folks concerned have often been (ab)used in order to benefit certain officials and favored contractors. And it seems, irrigation dams are now the "flavor of the decade" for this machination.

Consider further the useless P165-million useless Talibon Small Reservoir Impounding Project which was discovered to have been built on corrupt premises - as cited by the Visayas Ombudsman in March of 2005 as having a clear graft case with "prima facie" evidence against five NIA officials. It is now two and a half years, the Ombudsman has yet to file the case in the Sandiganbayan against the guilty parties. Another sweeping under the rug? Meantime, Calixto Seroje remains the Bohol Provincial Irrigation Engineer of NIA.

Barely had Lady Justice dried her tears after crying behind her blindfold for the Talibon project, the NEDA this year blew the whistle that NIA had proposed a P1.2-billion cost over-run on the BHIP-2 (Bayongan Dam) of P3.6 billion making it the "most expensive dam in the country" based on the P600,000 per hectare development cost.

The BHIP-2 is bound to fail, according to scientists, because it relies on the water-short Malinao Dam (largely) for water supply. That being the case, since the whole BHIP-2 service area will not be covered by water supply, the cost per hectare will even go up higher than P600,000 per hectare - making it perhaps a candidate for the Guinness Book of Records as the Most Expensive Dam in the World?

Most economically questioned over-runs are generally seen to benefit favored contractors and their public sector friends and sponsors while Juan de la Cruz and his children pay for the P3.6-billion loan used to finance the humongous dam.

Don't the sight of these pitiful icons of inefficiency and possibly graft (dams) ever strike the conscience of anyone anymore nowadays. Has corruption and carelessness with public funds really now become a way of life?

Has the commissioning "SOP" now a standard operating procedure that even proofs of such already dull the consciences of those who participated in the graft? Has shame now left our consciousness as a people?

Do you still wonder why the Philippines has been tagged the "most corrupt nation in Asia?"

If our sources are unimpeachably correct then the notorious Swertres game is flourishing.

The estimated Swertres daily financial transaction is P1.2 million or P430 million a year of untaxed transactions; the estimated net proceeds of one financier is P300,000 per day or P108 million in untaxed income.

The Swertres game, of course, will not exist without poor Juan de la Cruz setting aside part of "daily food budget" to indulge in this game of chance. And illegal as it is, Swertres will not prosper without the tacit or open support of the military and the public officials. Let's be frank.

Aside from denying the family the food nutrients (since the bet is deducted from the daily family budget), it also corrupts the mindset of Juan de la Cruz of getting rich quick on the basis of chance, instead of slowly saving up to set up a small business someday. This arrangement also creates an unholy alliance between the financiers, operators and their protectors which can be used to get their favored officials elected or reelected.

There is an evident lack of political will because knowing the illegal games exists; no one seems able to stop them. Perhaps our three solons can then perhaps study ways to link (by legislation) these to the Pagcor or PCSO gaming pipeline and legitimize the process since the menace can't be licked anyway?

This way, instead of the Mafia members getting uniformly rich at the expense of Juan de la Cruz - like Robin Hood in reverse - (getting from the poor to enrich the rich) - the money (transactions and income) will go to Government and be used for social services like education, health and insurance. Paging Reps. Chatto, Cajes and Jala.

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