Category: corruption

Blue Ribbon blues

Inaamin ko, nakatulog ako in some parts of Monday’s hearing — buti na lang may YouTube, twas easy to fill in the blanks — I guess because it was mostly disappointing. Nothing new except denials galore, no new whistleblowers to confirm previous allegations involving sitting senators, and meron ngang attempt to link Discaya with Romualdez, but using masked unidentified witnesses? Come on, guys, that was pathetic, try harder.

And while interesante naman talaga ang isyung Leviste files — the way he seems to have obtained some of them allegedly without a distressed Cabral‘s express permission, and the way he seems to be indulging the DDS who keep cheering him on, and the way Media can’t seem to have enough of his pabida pabayani script, na may paiyak-iyak pa, fearing for his life daw at kung ano-anong drama — mas interesado ako sa isyung Solar Corp franchise na allegedly in-award sa kanya ng Congress in a sweetheart wink of an eye, na hindi naman daw na-produce ang ipinangakong solar power, pero naibenta nga ba niya? at napagkitaan nang bonggang bongga? which deserves a separate hearing all his own.

And dahil inungkat ni Senator Ping ang kuwento ni whistleblower Bernardo tungkol kay Gen. Nick Torre, ngunit hindi ipinatawag si Torre, medyo nagulumihanan ako.  Dahil naipaliwanag na ni Torre sa ABS-CBN News three days ago what that was all about. Siya pala ang nilapitan nung priest friend na nilapitan ni Bernardo, nakisama lang si Torre, nagbigay ng options at advice. Tila walang comms group si Lacson na nagmomonitor ng media? Tuloy, nagbigay ng impression na nakialam si Torre, that he wanted to take custody of Bernardo, for sinister reasons, na quite unfair. https://www.youtube.com

Ang datíng sa akin, nangángapâ ang Blue Ribbon committee, what to uncover next that will not involve any of the senators already implicated by Bernardo. In aid of legislation lang daw kasi? Pero in aid of legislation kung mapupuntirya at matatanggal ang corrupt colleagues, di ba (unless nagtatago na o itinatago). Saka na muna yung masterminds, may araw din sila.

Pregnant pause…

But one-sided, because the DDS nepo cong hasn’t stopped with the braying, insisting that what he is in possession of, that he calls “Cabral files”, deserve immediate authentication and publication by DPWH Sec Vince Dizon and Ombudsman Boying Remulla just because, you know, he says so.

Dizon and Remulla are uncharacteristically silent, which makes me think na it’s just, you know, Pasko and Bagong Taon. Break muna. Let the brat whistleblow himself hoarse meanwhile. Regalo na rin nila sa media, LOL, a political-monologue-drama, con todo tears, to feast on, and for punditz and hecklers to speculate and prognosticate and cackle about.

Tanong ko lang diyan sa so-called Cabral files na hindi itinatanong ng media: Listahan ba yan ng mga hiningi ng proponents o listahan ng mga inalok ni Cabral? Sa akin lang ba hindi malinaw?

Of course we haven’t stopped hoping to see big fish proponents in jail, as promised. Sabi nila merong magpa-Pasko sa kulungan, wala naman. Sa New Year kayâ? E tipong last two minutes na.

Ang dasal ko lang of the PBBM admin ay: Sana hindi totoo ang palagay ng marami na dedz na ang flood-control corruption investigations. Sana may inihahanda silang bonggang pambungad sa New Year that will convince us that “due process” continues and, yes, corrupt proponents will be identified and will suffer for their sins.

Because otherwise, sabihin pa natin na totoong sobra ang takutan na nagaganap behind the scenes, powerful ones with private dossiers protecting their favorite legislators and cabinet officials past and present, anong magagawa natin? May magagawa ba tayo?

At the moment, while I’m counting on Vince Dizon and Boying Remulla to deal with the nepo brat ASAP, the one we need to hear from is the mother senator Loren na one billion lang naman daw ang nakatalâ sa listahan, ayon sa anak. Does she approve of her son’s pa-pansin politics at pa-anti-corruption drama? Are we seeing a stage mom whose advocacy is to keep the evil system in place?

Kung si Vico Sotto ang huwaran na hinahabol ng Leandrong ito, medyo they aren’t reading him right. Pero kung si Vico ang tinatarget nilang tapatán, e di wow. Lalong lumilinaw na the two are worlds apart.

Cathy Cabral’s revenge

Until the authorities prove there was foul play, I have no trouble believing that Cathy Cabral took her own life, threw herself down that Kennon Road ravine, in a final and deliberate act of defiance. She must have sensed by then that “due process” would could not work in her favor unless she turned state witness, but she hadn’t been asked, was not being considered, and she may have seen signs indicating that as usual, babae lang ang makukulong — she was likely to spend the rest of her life in jail, her family’s funds and assets frozen.

That her boss under PBBM was allowed to leave but did not return on the 17th as promised, that her boss under PRRD has been silent as a sphinx, must have told her in no uncertain terms that she was on her own. And I imagine that the pressure from senatongs and congtractors, in both Duterte and Marcos admins, to cover up for them, or else, must have been so intense it drove her angry enough to turn her back on it all, habang hindi pa siya nakakasuhan.

She was one bright lady, her CV impressive, the rare woman who made it in the macho world of infrastructure.

HEIDI MENDOZA. We can say, She’s among the best of career professionals. Despite the not so good ending, we cannot deny the long years of service she has rendered.

Nag-meet kami nung consultant pa ako sa World Bank at ADB. It’s a pleasure to work with her, magaling, committed at mabilis magtrabaho. Recipient din sya ng maraming awards, including the PRC Outstanding Professional with a solid academic and technical expertise !

What went wrong? https://www.facebook.com/

She was appointed DPWH Undersecretary, Planning and PPP (Public-Private Partnership) in 2014, and Senator Ping‘s data show that the budget started bloating with flood control projects (failed and ghost) in 2016. She must have known what her bosses were up to, and that she was helping facilitate corruption with her algorithmic formulas. I wonder if she wavered at first, or did she ever waver but decided to stay anyway? Bahala na? And when shit hit the fan and floods hit high and wide, did she have a sense of foreboding and start reflecting on her options, and her mortality?

Di naman nakakagulat ang conspiracy theories — nasundan sila, itinulak siya, para patahimikin forever about kickbacks in billions of bucks — given what and who she knows. Pero nakakaloka ang questions like: but she’s afraid of heights, so what was she doing by that cliffside, unless she had been ordered to be there by some macho with evil designs?

My take is, instinctive naman ang fear of heights, and while Cabral’s may have been  pronounced enough for her to admit, it did not necessarily mean that it could would not be one of her options if she were thinking on how to commit suicide, esp if she wanted to leave certain clues behind. Sabi nga ni DILG Sec Jonvic Remulla, that Kennon Road site was familiar terrain to Cabral, she had been there before. Where she jumped was across the road from mountain slopes where rocknetting projects dating back to 2018-2019 were inspected by PBBM last August and which he declared overpriced and substandard, projects said to be attributed to two Congressmen, one of whom is said to now own the Baguio hotel where Cabral checked in.

Sabi nga sa Facebook, it’s like she left breadcrumbs behind, a la Hansel and Gretel, calling our attention to that failed rocknet project, sinong contractor, sinong proponent, sino-sinong tumanggap ng kickback, check out the Baguio hotel, too, find the connections, for starters. Hopefully, the ICI and the Ombudsman will be guided accordingly, too, as they navigate the murky waters of corruption.

What’s most curious, and telling, is the attitude that Cabral’s death is a death blow to anti-corruption efforts, as if everything had hinged on Cabral’s expected revelations on flood control projects over the last 10 years. You wonder then why they didn’t get to her sooner. Did they actually think that she would sit idly and meekly by, just hoping and praying that her bosses might own up to the command responsibility, after all, she was just following orders, or something like that?

Cathy Cabral was no ordinary woman. She knew that the odds were stacked against her. And rather than spend the rest of her life in prison and penury, I can believe she decided to simply end it. Sabay leave ng clues, and hopefully documents, ledgers, USBs, too — a kind of revenge on all these guys na nakinabang sa kanya but when push came to shove didn’t hesitate to throw her under the bus. Almost like a macho conspiracy. Sa dulo, siya pala ang pasasagasaan. F*ck-you-all nga naman. Manigas kayo.

Enrile, Zaldy, 3-day rally

Nov 13. The centenarian Juan Ponce Enrile finally breathed his last, lingering a couple more days in ICU after it was announced that he had “slim chances of surviving”, which no one really doubted, given his age, whether 101 or 103. I wondered though why the family didn’t wait to announce until he was truly gone. Tuloy, the news generated all sorts of long-life and masamang-damo memes but also some serious vlogs and essays, mostly reminding of his notorious part in our nation’s history as architect and implementor of martial law and top Marcos crony (which he denied in his memoir), at marami pang iba. Pero okay din, I guess, to get all the sorry stuff said already… get it out of our systems… though it could take forever…

The ones who try to be fair invariably note his heroism in 1986 when he defected from Marcos and “sparked the EDSA revolution”, while others go on to ask why nothing changed, and why, how, he was never made to account for all the wrongdoing as well as the awesome wealth. Tanong pa ng isa, bakit sila-sila lang ang yumaman, bakit hindi binitbit ang taong-bayan?  https://www.youtube.com/

I only know enough about EDSA, and I concede that Enrile was an EDSA hero, but not because he defected from Marcos, rather, because he gave way to Cory. For sure, there was an ex-deal, maybe immunity from suit, atbp., who knows, but for some critical moments there, Enrile was touched by, and bowed to, People Power.

But it’s not true that if Enrile had not defected, Marcos would not have been ousted. February 22 was the 7th day of Cory’s nonviolent civil disobedience and crony boycott campaign to compel Marcos to resign. The economy was reeling and the banks were running. Cory was already in the Visayas, next stop, Mindanao, spreading the word, adding to her list of crony companies to boycott. The people were already in the throes of non-violent revolution. Marcos’s inauguration on the 25th would have brought the people out into the streets anyway, marching to Mendiola most likely, there to face the tanks and the Marines as bravely.

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Nov 14. The missing Zaldy Co, whose Sunwest Construction and its joint ventures were awarded P86.1 billion in govt infra contracts from 2016 to 2025, suddenly showed up on our digital screens, alleging that only PBBM and former Speaker Martin Romualdez benefitted from the P100 billion insertions in the 2025 national budget, and that he could be killed for saying so. Nov 15. Zaldy struck again with another video confirming the Guteza story, and showing bags and bags purportedly full of money…male-maleta ng pera…na idineliver daw sa Forbes Park at sa Malacañang.

Napaka-obvious naman na sinadyang ipalabas ang mga video, at magpalabas ang Zaldy, just before the 3-day DDS INC JIL KOJC UPI anti-corruption protest rallies sa Edsa at Luneta whose fervent desire is to oust the president and install the VP.

Which makes Zaldy Co what? A DDS hero? For defecting from the BBM-Romualdez admin? Pero dati nang DDS si Zaldy, nagbalik-loob laang, kumbaga. Siguro’y pinangakuan ng immunity from suit kung sakaling mapababa si PBBM? A la Enrile in 1986 kunó? At least Enrile had the grace, and the smarts, to seriously woo Coryistas, admitting that in the snap election they cheated Cory out of 300,000 votes in Cagayan, and that the 1972 ambush was staged.

Zaldy should just come home, face the music, testify under oath, let the chips fall where they may. History just might remember him more kindly.

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