Lifestyle checks conducted among 468 employees working in agencies being overseen by the Department of Finance (DOF)—including the country's two biggest tax-collectors—resulted in 77 personnel reprimanded for alleged corruption.

Citing the latest report of its anticorruption arm Revenue Integrity Protection Service (Rips), the DOF said in a statement on Tuesday that from July 2016 to February 2022, 58 cases against erring workers had been lodged in the Office of the Ombudsman, the Civil Service Commission and other quasi-judicial bodies. The DOF's Rips being supervised by Finance Undersecretary Bayani Agabin probed employees of the DOF central office, the bureaus of Customs (BOC), of Internal Revenue (BIR), of Local Government Finance), and of the Treasury, as well as the Insurance Commission.

"Over half or 55 percent of the 468 employees investigated were from the BOC, while over a third or 38 percent were from the BIR," Ray Gilberto Espinosa, executive director of the DOF-Rips, recently reported to Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III.

No less than President Duterte had tagged the BIR and the BOC, which collected the bulk of the government's tax revenues, as "corrupt" agencies.

The DOF-Rips' investigations led to 16 employees dismissed from service, on top of 10 who had been found guilty in criminal cases, Espinosa was quoted by the DOF as saying.

"Another 35 employees were suspended, nine were reprimanded and seven were ordered to pay fines as penalties for the charges for which they were held liable," Espinosa said.

Last year, the DOF launched a dedicated page (https://www.dof.gov.ph/report-corruption) on its official webpage, enjoining citizens to report cases of possible irregularities not only in the department but also in all of the agencies it supervises.

Dominguez also last year disclosed that they were going after private lobbyists who wielded influence over government decision-making to push their own interests to the detriment of public good, or called "state capture."

"Capturers of the state operate discreetly, in order to lull the ordinary Filipino into thinking that whatever project they are pushing for will ultimately redound to the benefit of the public. These capturers are enterprising private individuals who use every resource at their disposal, including the media and political figures. They employ a carrot-and-stick approach to influence politicians," Dominguez explained last year. INQ