ONE way the corrupt try to look clean is to launch a crusade
against corruption. The impressionable then think that someone waging war on
graft would not engage in it.
That’s how then President Benigno Aquino 3rd could unleash
immense sleaze on the nation, and yet still be seen as “corrupt-free,” as his
handpicked Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales lauded him last December.
In fact, anomalies under Aquino were huge, even
unprecedented in some respects, and are still burdening our people today. *
Take the mammoth anomalies in the transport department under
Liberal Party stalwarts Mar Roxas and Jose Emilio Abaya. Due to an illegal
license plate contract bid out and awarded with no budget allocation, hundreds
of thousands of vehicles have no license plates, even if owners already paid
P400 each for the illegally contracted plates.
Also bedeviled by incompetence or sleaze are driver’s
license cards, also unissued by the millions because the Land Transportation
Office under Aquino’s shooting buddy Virginia Torres (God rest her soul)
delayed payments on the computerized licensing contractor.
But the real bonanza was at the Bureau of Customs, where
smuggling trebled to $26.6 billion in 2014, from less than $8 billion five
years before. No wonder the system Aquino left “swallowed” Duterte appointee
Col. Nicanor Faeldon, as Sen. Panfilo Lacson put it.
When more than 2,000 cargo containers disappeared in
2011—the biggest spate of smuggling in Philippine history—Aquino never had it
investigated. Imagine the racket the yellow camp would have made if that
happened under Gloria Arroyo or Rodrigo Duterte.
Still, the most pernicious and anti-democratic sleaze was
the use of pork barrel and the illegal Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP)
to induce legislators to pass Aquino’s pet bills and oust impeachable officials
he didn’t like. *
The Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF), the pork
barrel scheme created by Aquino’s mother Corazon, more than doubled under him,
from about P8 billion during the Arroyo years, to more than P20 billion from
2011 until the Supreme Court declared PDAF unconstitutional in 2013, and DAP
too the following year.
Plus: No less than the Supreme Court in its unanimous
decision said that DAP funds were allocated to programs and projects not found
in any budgetary appropriations enacted by Congress. Spending public funds in
ways not authorized by budget laws constitutes malversation. So, the high court
ordered Ombudsman Morales to probe and charge the “authors” of the P157-billion
DAP.
The hypocrisy continues
Today, the yellow hypocrisy continues, now decrying moves to hold its stalwarts and appointees accountable for gross anomalies. It has balked at impeachment petitions against Aquino appointees Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, Commission on Elections Chairman Andres Bautista, and Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales.
Today, the yellow hypocrisy continues, now decrying moves to hold its stalwarts and appointees accountable for gross anomalies. It has balked at impeachment petitions against Aquino appointees Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, Commission on Elections Chairman Andres Bautista, and Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales.
Is the Liberal Party and its allies in business, legal, and
civil society groups saying that the issuance of Supreme Court resolutions
without the constitutionally required en banc approval is not serious enough to
warrant congressional investigation and prosecution? Plus, the alleged
manipulation of the Judicial and Bar Council shortlists of nominees to court
vacancies, including the post of Associate Justice, prompting the Supreme Court
en banc to overrule the JBC? *
Is it now no longer right to impeach officials for not
declaring tens or hundreds of millions of pesos in assets, like Sereno’s
earnings from the NAIA Terminal 3 case, and most of Comelec Chair Bautista’s
nearly P1 billion in bank deposits, as alleged by his estranged wife with
passbooks and account statements?
The yellows cheered when the LP-dominated Senate convicted
Chief Justice Renato Corona for failing to declare dollar deposits covered by
absolute secrecy—an offense that could have been corrected without penalty
under the law. So, why are they changing their tune now that their appointees
are accused of hiding mountains of cash?
As for Ombudsman Morales, whose predecessor was impeached
for allegedly favoring former President Gloria Arroyo, is it now wrong to hold
Moales to the same standard of impartiality in dealing with the past
administration which appointed her?
Consider what this wrongly awarded paragon of partiality has
done. Despite a unanimous Supreme Court ruling that programs and projects not
appearing in any pertinent budgetary laws were allocated DAP funds—a textbook
case of malversation—she has found no reason to charge Aquino, who signed every
DAP disbursement, and merely slapped the wrist of the other DAP author, former
Budget Secretary Florencio Abad. *
In the disappearance of more than 2,000 cargo containers in
2011, she has exerted zero effort in probing the mammoth smuggling, even if it
is so easy to simply grill all those who kept releasing boxes after dozens or
hundreds had vanished, so they will point fingers at higher-ups who
masterminded the scam.
Are all the foregoing gross and blatant anomalies worthy of
the same congressional reckoning which then-President Aquino demanded for CJ
Corona and then-Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez?
Or does being named or favored by him exempt officials from
accountability, like the LP stalwarts spared from pork barrel cases targeting
opposition senators, prompting Catholic bishops to decry “selective
prosecution”?
Decrying Duterte ‘despotism’
A further argument raised against impeachment is the power it could give President Duterte over the judiciary, the Comelec, and the Office of the Ombudsman if all their heads were removed. Rights lawyer and former De La Salle University law dean Chel Diokno warned of Duterte despotism.
A further argument raised against impeachment is the power it could give President Duterte over the judiciary, the Comelec, and the Office of the Ombudsman if all their heads were removed. Rights lawyer and former De La Salle University law dean Chel Diokno warned of Duterte despotism.
Well, where were these lemon-tinted objectors when their
idol Aquino named his election lawyer Sixto Brillantes as Comelec chairman, his
Ateneo classmate Sereno as Chief Justice, and the justice who swore him in as
Ombudsman?
Didn’t those three appointments also give the yellow gang
immense influence over these independent constitutional bodies?
And more to the point, are they now fighting tooth and nail
to keep that clout in the Supreme Court, the Comelec, and the OMB? *
Plainly, if Chief Justice Sereno, Comelec Chair Bautista,
and Ombudsman Morales, along with their yellow backers, were keen to keep their
offices from falling under the sway of Duterte appointees, they should have
kept their noses clean. But they didn’t.
The article is by Mr. Ricardo Saludo of the Manila Times,
published October 3, 2017 titled “Yellow is the color of hypocrisy.”
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