Pandaya – Recent hearings at the Jakarta Corruption Court gave the public a glimpse of how two former Cabinet ministers allegedly spent public funds like their private wealth.

Key witnesses disclosed under oath that the defendants had burned billions of rupiah they accepted as "operational funds" on anything from the official's wife's lavish birthday bash to an application for a grandchild's passport.

On the docks were former religious minister Suryadharma Ali and former energy and mineral resources minister Jero Wacik. In separate hearings, prosecutors charged Jero with allegedly misusing Rp 8.4 billion (US$57,100) and Suryadharma Rp 1.8 billion in operational funds.

Beside the operational fund case, Suryadharma – a United Development Party (PPP) politician – is also standing trial for the unaccounted Rp 27.4 billion in haj funds during his ministerial stint between 2009 and 2014.

In fact, Suryadharma's embezzlement allegation was a "byproduct" of the Corruption Eradication Commission's (KPK) probe into the haj-fund case.

Suryadharma is trying to disprove prosecutors' charges that he misused official funds to settle his wife's medical bills and finance family outings that took them to Australia and Singapore.

Andri Alphen, one of Suryadharma's aides, testified on Wednesday that when the irregularity was found out by the KPK, Suryadharma went ballistic and summoned him along with two other staffers to his residence. His boss banged the table and ordered them to manipulate the accountability report in his favor.

Suryadharma dismissed Andri's testimony as "an attempt to corner him". "My wife is a House of Representatives member and has medical insurance to cover her medical bills," he told reporters.

Jero, a senior Democratic Party politician, was charged with allegedly misappropriating Rp 10.5 billion in operational funds during his previous stint as culture and tourism minister between 2008 and 2011.

Among the private events allegedly funded with money from the state coffers was his wife's lavish birthday party thrown simultaneously with the launch of her book about embroidery in 2012, which together cost Rp 619 million, according to court documents. On hand were fellow ministers' wives.

Jero denied the charge. He swore that his relatives' birthdays had always been celebrated modestly with a family get-together at a restaurant. As for the book, he claimed the launch was held and funded by a foundation that his wife chaired.

He fiercely argued that the money was legal income and thus he had every right as a state official to spend it however he deemed appropriate. "During my term as culture and tourism minister, I earned Rp 14.4 billion in operational funds. I took Rp 8.4 billion [thereof] and I have receipts for all my spending," he told journalists.

KPK prosecutors told the court that state losses had reached a whopping Rp 10.5 billion. The difference gives KPK investigators reason to suspect that Jero may have shared the money with other people.

While judges may need a few more weeks to reach verdicts, the Suryadharma and Jero cases are a shocking sign of crumbling family values.

This year's observance of Pancasila Sanctity Day on Oct. 1 was unusually lively with debates on what the government should do to resolve the long-standing gross human rights violations in the wake of the communist purge that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives in 1965.

President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has been steadfast in rejecting demands that the state should apologize to the victims of the aborted coup attempt blamed on the now-defunct Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).

On a more positive note, this year's observance offered more than the televised routine, somber state ceremony at the Pancasila Sanctity Monument at Lubang Buaya, East Jakarta, where attendants walk down memory lane of the seven generals slain in the coup bid.

Intellectuals, activists, religious leaders and the mainstream media have been renewing their calls for the Jokowi administration to revitalize the state ideology, Pancasila, which has been seriously undermined by the growing tide of intolerance, religious radicalism, widespread corruption and injustice.

As the state ideology that binds the various ethnic, cultural and religious differences that make up Indonesia, Pancasila has been facing serious challenges since the fall of president Soeharto, who often bent the philosophy to suit his political interests and thus gave it a bad name.

Then came greater freedom of speech, which has been unfortunately misused by religious radicals in the name of democracy to promote their theocratic ideology to replace Pancasila.

The government ought to reintroduce Pancasila as a mandatory subject in schools as Soeharto did, albeit with innovations to fit present day situations. Other concrete measures the government may take would be to review sharia-inspired bylaws adopted by numerous cities and regencies nationwide.

Economic injustice resulting in the concentration of resources in the hands of an elite few, the widening gulf between the rich and the poor blamed for social ills, like poverty and extremism, have long been identified, but solutions remain a far cry.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/10/04/the-week-review-public-funds-family-outings.html