THE National Press Club of the Philippines (NPC), the biggest and one of the oldest organizations of active members of the press, expresses its full support to its former 2-term president and current National Irrigation Administration (NIA) administrator, Benny Antiporda, in his fight to clear his name from the insidious machination of a few scalawags inside and outside of the NIA, unfortunately with the unwitting participation of the Office of the Ombudsman.

By itself, the Ombudsman’s suspension of Antiporda last November 15, 2022, done with undue haste and under questionable circumstances (he was not even given the courtesy of seeing the flimsy complaints against him until now) smacks of graft and corruption on the part of the OMB and glaringly demonstrates the sad plight of the government’s campaign against graft and corrupt practices these days.

As Antiporda’s personal acquittance and fellow media colleagues for over 2 decades now during our collective effort to reform and promote the credibility of the NPC in particular, and the Philippine media in general, we witnessed the many times he made personal sacrifices and took personal risks.

Maybe it is also time to inform the Ombudsman that right after the Ampatuan Massacre in November 2009 that killed 34 of our media colleagues, Antiporda rejected the P20 million bribe, in cash, offered to him by an emissary of the Ampatuan clan—“with more to come”— to dissuade him from leading the Philippine media from further pursuing justice for the massacre victims.

If Antiporda is such a corrupt person as the OMB and his detractors now want him to be pictured thru his suspension, why did he not took the bribe money back then, at a time when he is also just another struggling journalist?

And why did he not also accept the cash “pasalubong” offered to him by shady personalities inside the NIA when he was appointed to the agency last February?

Was this incident one of the real reasons why some personalities there have conspired with some elements inside the OMB to discredit him knowing he would not tolerate the ‘more-of-the-same’ status at the NIA prior to his arrival?

During the Club’s oath-taking with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., last August 25, 2022 with Antiporda as our guest, we witnessed his pledge to the President that if he could not reform the agency by cleansing it of its corrupt personnel within one year in order for the NIA to deliver on its core mission of irrigating the country’s farmlands during the Marcos administration, he would tender his resignation.

We wonder, is this the ‘price’ that an appointee of the President who is one with him in delivering good and effective governance would have to pay? Is the OMB not one with the President in the promotion of good governance in the entire bureaucracy?

With the OMB’s action against Antiporda—while failing to act, until now, on the complaints he filed against suspected grafters at NIA plus the multitude of cases filed against other public officials and which remain languishing at the OMB, the issue has gone beyond the personality of Antiporda.

The issue now centers on the seriousness and credibility of the government’s campaign against graft and corruption in its entirety and on the credibility and seriousness of the OMB in addressing this social malaise, which is a betrayal of public trust.

We are also calling on all NPC-affiliated media organizations in the country to issue their separate statements of support to Antiporda and his campaign to rid the NIA, a critical government agency, of graft and corruption.

Finally, we also call on Congress and President Marcos Jr., to urgently look into this matter and act to promptly correct this grave injustice.