Jessica Lucila “Gigi” Reyes, the former Chief of Staff of Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, expressed surprise and disgust – and I would not be surprised if she has been having sleepless nights lately – over the statement made by Enrile’s lawyer, Enrique de la Cruz, that she never was authorized to release Enrile’s pork barrel funds. Enrile, who once admitted that his ambush before the declaration of Martial Law was staged, yet retracted it in his recent memoirs, is at it again. This time, he is distancing himself from his once powerful Chief of Staff. See what a person will do to save his own skin. That appears to be the kind of person Enrile is. If I were Gigi, I would just turn state witness and pin down his former boss.
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Francisco “Kit” Tatad, who faithfully served as Ferdinand Marcos’ mouthpiece during the Martial Law years, claimed in his column in The Manila Standard dated 9/23/13, that Malacanang disbursed at least P24 billion “to affect Corona’s impeachment” and another P25 billion “to ram through the RH bill.” He further added that “an extra P20 billion was believed to have been released to the lawmakers as regular pork.” Tatad, who was against Corona’s impeachment and opposed the passage of the RH bill, would do service to the country if he would name the lawmakers who benefitted from these funds. Tatad, a hardcore martial law propagandist should learn from whistleblower Benhur Luy and name names rather than practice the art of insinuation.
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Two senators implicated in the P10 billion pork barrel scam explained that their signatures were forged in endorsing fake NGOs. My unsolicited advice to these two senators is for them to change their strategy because it won’t work. Forgery is difficult because no two people write exactly alike. It is difficult to duplicate the subconscious habits of another person. A trained forensic document expert can easily identify an authentic signature from a forged one. Granted for the sake of argument that their signatures were indeed forged, how about the millions of pesos that they allegedly pocketed from the transactions? They still have a lot of explaining to do.
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The Supreme Court issued a TRO on the Department of Justice’s power to stop persons on its watchlist from leaving the country. So the Supreme Court has just allowed the suspects in the P10 billion pork barrel scam to leave the country and escape prosecution, if they want to. That’s the problem with lawyers at times. In their efforts to uphold the law, they lose their common sense.
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Now that Sen. Jinggoy Estrada is accused of plunder by the Department of Justice, he promised to deliver a privilege speech exposing the corruption of his fellow lawmakers. A “bombshell” is how he describes it. He is a little too late. He should have done this long time ago. Now that he was caught with his pants down, he wants to bring the entire house down with him. That’s what I call “poor loser.” He seems to be saying, “I am not going down the drain alone, I will bring you guys with me. “ A typical poster boy of crab mentality. This is a person who has a presidential ambition.
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According to Lorna Kapunan, the lawyer of Janet Lim- Napoles, her client fears for her life. She should be. That’s what she gets for enriching herself by working in cahoots with lawmakers and other people who are of dubious character. Their network can be compared to the mafia. It’s well organized and well financed. But when things are rough, someone has to be sacrificed. It may be Gigi Reyes. It may be one of the whistle blowers. It may be Janet Lim-Napoles. I understand why Napoles is afraid for her life.
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Where in the world can you find a place where the members of the dictator’s family, after being driven out of the country, were allowed to come back and have even gradually regained political power? Only in the Philippines. It’s easy to blame the voters for putting the Marcoses back to power: Imelda is currently a congresswoman; Imee, a governor; Bongbong, a senator. But the educational system is also to be blamed for not critically teaching the evils of martial law and how the Marcoses have looted the country. As a result, a good number of our people have no knowledge of the evils of Martial Law or they have simply forgotten them. We seem to be suffering from collective amnesia. With Bongbong’s perceived ambition to run for president in 2016, which he himself has not categorically denied, the following statement taken from the editorial of the Philippine Daily Inquirer last September 20,2013, has a prophetic tone: “This being a magic-realist country where even convicted plunderers can stage spectacular political comebacks, there is obviously no stopping them—except a public that hopefully recovers its memory, self-respect, and sense of right and wrong in time to say: Never again.”
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According to one of the whistleblowers, Janet Lim-Napoles allegedly checked Benhur Luy’s personal bank account at Metrobank. When she found out that the balance was too high, she called the bank and was able to withdraw from Luy’s account without the latter’s consent. Given what I’ve read about her lately, I am not surprised that she could do this. What is beyond me is why the bank allowed it.
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Why can’t CASURECO II provide excellent service to its customers? The constant brownouts, announced and unannounced, are reflections of a cooperative that’s poorly and unprofessionally run. I don’t know how many electrical devices and appliances have been damaged by constant brownouts and sudden electrical surges. I don’t know how many data and information have been lost in thousands of personal computers because of unannounced brownouts. I don’t know how many work-related activities or transactions have been delayed or lost because of brownouts. But I know that consumers deserve good service, especially if they do their share by paying their bills in a timely manner. I hope I am not beating a dead horse. My 2 cents.