Category: corruption

The Senate on Trial

After hearing from Amici Curiae in the Senate Impeachment Court, my first reaction was, bakit puro lalaki?  Dahil walang former Chief Justice na babae? Pero Associate Justice din lang yung isa, kahit pa kasali siya sa nag-frame ng 1987 Constitution. Wala bang former AJ na babae na qualified to weigh in, just in case may naiibang pananaw o angle o retorika?

Not that the men disappointed. Adequately explained naman ang two sides of the argument: yung 16 as immutable or fixed threshold (AJ Adolf Azcuna) VS. yung adjustable 2/3 of the members in attendance (CJs Hilario Davide, Artemio Panganiban, Reynato Puno). Ibig sabihin: 16 votes needed to impeach — kung 2/3 of 24 senators; 14 votes needed — kung 2/3 of 20, absent Estrada and Marcoleta, Bato and Loren).

BALL’S IN YOUR COURT, SENATE….
My major major take-away is that  the ex-CJ Supremes were unanimous on: the Senate Court’s “sole” power  to interpret and to promulgate rules relating to the Impeachment. Ibig sabihin, the Senators will have to resolve the issues by their collegial lonesomes. Hindi maaasahan, as of the moment, ang Supreme Court to decide the matter for them. Unless, of course, the Supremes of today deem otherwise?

Siyempre the DDS bloc (7 of 11 show up intermittently) deeply wish to abide by the fixed 16 votes (kunwari everybody present) — yan daw ang ibig sabihin ng Constitution sa “2/3 of all the members,” na pinanindigan pa ni Justice Azcuna. Pahihirapan ang current Majority of 13 to come up with 3 more votes.

At siyempre the DDS bloc want Estrada and Marcoleta to be allowed to attend the hearings either electronically or in person, and supplied with copies of transcripts atbp. para makaboto din sila. Ang tanong, para que? For what? For the numbers man lang, para madagdagan ang bilang nila, in case mabawasan pa dahil BAKA may makasuhan at makulong pang iba?

WHAT IF WE RAISE THE BAR
What kind of Senate is this na ang daming miyembro na may kaso, o may nagbabadyang kaso, for plunder atbp. What if, sa 2028, i-ban ng Comelec from running for election anyone with a pending corruption case? Itigil na yang innocent-until-proven-guilty eklat. Lalo pa kung flood-control-scam related ang kaso — itrato silang guilty-until-proven-innocent, and, therefore, not qualified to run for public office or deserving of public trust until declared innocent by the courts.

GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT
Believe it or not, the legal maxim “innocent until proven guilty” is based on the long questioned, always challenged, premise that humans are inherently good — isinilang tayo na mabait — therefore daw, if accused of wrongdoing, it is more likely that you are innocent rather than guilty.  Pero hindi ba kabaligtaran iyan ng Catholic premise of “original sin” na ating kinagisnan kinalakhan at pinaniniwalaan, and which is why mayroong Baptism, Confession, and Communion, even Extreme Unction, ang Simbahan as cleansing Sacraments?

Maybe the two most famous opposing views on this debate are those of Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Hobbes describes humans as ‘nasty’ and ‘brutish’, needing society and rules to reign in their instincts in order to thrive; later Rousseau openly criticised him, arguing instead that man would be gentle and pure without the corruption of greed and inequality caused by the class system imposed by our society. https://www.bbcearth.com/

Let the burden be on the accused senators and congressmen — first come first served — to prove that they’re innocent, and if they cannot, likely because their SALNs and bank accounts and maybe new whistleblowers say otherwise, then ipagkukulong sila. No ifs or buts, no house or hospital arrests, No Mercy.

FOR NOW, LOOKING FORWARD TO ORAL ARGUMENTS

Sept 23 the Court is set to hear oral arguments from the prosecution and defense on the threshold question, after which the Senators will decide, although Sen Ping is asking to sleep on it before voting. Nang mapag-isipan nang mabuti. Oo nga naman. It will be quite a show.

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.