Category: corruption

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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Sambayanan, maki-alam! ~ Mareng Winnie

So far November has been heartbreaking and enraging — sobrang saklap ang mga bahâ na sumalanta sa Cebu at Negros, Samar at Palawan — and sobrang nakakanerbiyos itong bracing for Typhoon Uwang that’s blowing in over Luzon this weekend that’s expected to be even worse than Typhoon Tino.

“We’re flooded to the max,” Gov. Pamela Baricuatro lamented, despite P26 billion allocated for flood control in the province. She called for probes to determine accountability for what many Cebu residents described as their first brush with torrential flooding.

Malacañang said yesterday that 343 flood control projects were recorded in Cebu between 2016 and 2022, and 168 more from 2022 to 2025. https://www.philstar.com/

That it had to come to this, full-scale over-the-top killer floods destroying lives and homes, sweeping off and literally piling-up parked vehicles… That it had to come to this, before we stopped blaming just climate change and super-typhoons for the megafloods and finally started seeing the harsh consequences not just of government’s corrupt and “pretend” flood-control schemes (all three branches complicit) but also of environmental degradation, defying all laws of nature, in the name of “development”.  What development?

This has to be the pits. And I wish it were true that things could only get better, now that we’re informed enough about who are to blame.  And yes, we wish that PBBM and the ICI and the DOJ and the Ombudsman would get their act together more speedily and effectively, we want, we need, to see heads roll already, the higher in the conspiracy, the better.

But we have to be patient, without letting go of the anger. “Due process” ang mantra ng accused, “innocent until proven guilty” daw, kayâ wala ni isang senador o congressman na umaamin, baka makalusot pa uli. I imagine that the authorities are moving as fast as they can, pero hindi madaling magkalap ng ebidensiya laban sa mga konektadong tiwali na marurunong at sanay dumiskarte para walang huli.

Lubay-lubayan din natin ang mga panawagan na pababain sa puwesto si PBBM. And then what?!? The VP takes over, and then what? Lalo lang magkakagulo. I haven’t heard her or anyone in the DDS camp offer an alternative lawful procedure that would speed up the process of holding accountable, and jailing, corrupt government officials. If anything, I imagine that a Duterte presidency would focus only on the Marcoses and their cohorts (sweet revenge) and exonerate the likes of Escudero and Villanueva and Estrada atbpang kaalyadong akusado. At least, with PBBM, if we push hard enough and angrily enough, maaaring pati si Romualdez ay mapilitan silang imbestigahan.

Which is why hindi ko gets ang Iglesia ni Cristo three-day rally Nov 16-18 sa Luneta to call daw “for transparency and accountability in government”. Three days? Maybe hoping to entice non-INCs na DDS and retired military coup-ists to join? Praying for an Edsa in Luneta baga? And then, what?  https://www.philstar.com/

Besides, Mercury goes retrograde from the 10th to the 29th of November. Not a good time to try anything different, rather, a good time to simply continue what we’ve been doing — pushing pa rin for accountability and heads to roll — while paying attention to the Senate and ICI hearings, the better to sustain the anger and the advocacy.

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I was about to publish this yesterday when I heard Winnie Monsod live on Storycon | OneNewsPh saying basically the same, about keeping informed and keeping up the pressure on government, and more, with lessons from PNoy’s time, when asked for her reaction to the drop in GDP (economic growth) July – October.  https://www.youtube.com/

Regina Lay: On a scale of one to ten how angry are you?

Winnie Monsod:  Not angry. That’s what was expected. Considering what has all been going on with our government, how can you expect anything to happen. Our government infrastructure expenditures went down by 26.8 % — that’s a hell of a big decline over last year. Ang maganda rito … hindi naman maganda … but what is noteworthy is that [a similar] decline … happened 14 years ago, in 2011, during Noynoy Aquino’s term as president, in the beginning years…. What is notable is that after that government fixed its public works problem, with Babes Singson at the helm, the Aquino government went on to grow at a pace which has not been matched so far.

In other words, it’s not all bad news. Even though it comes out of this corruption scandal, if it really takes root, yung anti-corruption measures…  It will be bad news if after all these scandals, wala ring nangyari. Ayan ang talagang bad news. But itong corruption scandal na ito, good news because at last we have found out, at least the Filipino people have found out, who are to blame. Now, whether that gets translated into justice for the Filipino people, I don’t know. If it does, you can expect very good things to happen to the Philippine economy. If it does not, we are doomed to continuous failure.

Amy Pamintuan: What’s a reasonable time frame….

Winnie: In 2011, ang problem yung government spending. By 2015, four years later, the Philippines was one of the top 10 investment destinations of international investors. By 2015 the Philippines’ corruption perception index had improved… the rule of law index had improved to an extent not seen afterwards. In other words, when Duterte came, and then when Marcos came, bumaba lahat ‘yan.  And remember … it was during Noynoy’s time yung Napoles [scandal], maraming na-jail, maraming kinasuhan. That improved international investor confidence in the Philippines so much…

So what do you make of that? I’m saying that if we handle this corruption scandal accordingly and really get people to jail instead of for cosmetic purposes, then we will do very well. Pag hindi ito nangyari…. In other words, it’s up to us. It’s up to us to make sure that what is happening now continues to a good end.

Regina: Are things going in the right direction vis a vis ICI?

Winnie:   I know what they’re going to do but up to now I still haven’t seen any transparency in their hearings. Meron na ba? … The people should be kept abreast of what is going on so that they will know how to react to it and how to, themselves, act. Because the people now have to be proactive. Sila ang tinatamaan, sila ang dapat may information as to what is going on so that they will know how to coordinate their actions… about rallies and whatever is is that’s going on. … We have to keep the public pressure on the government as heavy as possible so that the government will do what they have to do. … It is up to us, the people, to carry this forward to make sure that the government is forced to act the way we want them to act. Kailangang kailangan ang participation ng sambayanan.

Amy: What’s doable by way of institutional reforms?

Winnie: Who is ultimately responsible for what is happening? Is it not Congress, the Legislature, ang may problem dito? All right. We want institutional reforms in Congress. We already have our case before the Supreme Court asking the Supreme Court to do [something about] the political dynasty law. That’s one.

Number two. E sino bang nag-e-elect ng mga taong nasa Konggreso ngayon? Hindi ba ang sambayanan? In other words, they bear a lot of the responsibility here. Not just government. If we want good people in Congress, we have to elect them. Hindi ba? So you know, we have to make sure na ang tao realize that the people they elected to Congress were really bad eggs. And if they don’t realize that, then we are doomed to having that kind of quality of Congress in the future. So a lot depends on the Filipino people.

KEYWORDS: Keep abreast. Be proactive. Coordinate actions. Keep up the pressure on government. Demand transparency. Jail the guilty.

Let Supremes decide Villanueva dismissal

​In 2013 pork barrel-fixer Janet Lim Napoles named Joel Villanueva among her 100 congressmen-accomplices. In 2016 then-Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales ordered him, then a newly-elected senator, dismissed from public office. 

Karen Davila: In 2016 when you ordered his dismissal, the Senate refused. Should the Senate have followed…?

Conchita Carpio-Morales: They should have. Otherwise everyone wants to be a senator… because any infraction of the law that you commit, you will still remain a senator.

Davila: The Ombudsman ordered a senator’s dismissal, hindi sumunod ang Senado, as a body. They all cooperated as an institution. Anong nagging epekto  nito sa atin?

Carpio-Morales: We are the laughingstock of other countries because we don’t know how to  enforce our law, we don’t know how to implement the decisions that are spawned from legal  proceedings. https://www.facebook.com/

The interview happened October 5. Two days later, Oct 7, DOJ Sec Boying Remulla was appointed Ombudsman. He took his oath of office Oct 9. Two weeks later, Oct 23, he announced that he would write to Senate President Vicente Sotto III and ask him to enforce Villanueva’s dismissal from public office. But before he could do so, ex-Ombudsman Samuel Martires announced that he had reversed the order, clearing the senator of all charges back in July 2019. But why did he not make it public then?

Jarius Bondoc: Martires’ claim is queer. He never publicized his exculpation of Villanueva supposedly to “protect a person’s dignity.” Duh! Doesn’t absolution from a crime restore a person’s dignity? So why hide it? Baligtad na ba ang mundo?

Queerer is Villanueva’s silence all these years. His graft buster image was tarnished 17 years ago in 2008 when as Citizen’s Battle Against Corruption party rep he was linked to P10-million sleaze. https://www.philstar.com/

Queer, and lame. It was more likely because, after 17 years, parang nakalimutan na ng madlang pipol ang kaso, so why even remind us. News of such a dismissal would certainly have scandalized, and triggered debates anew. The question now is: valid ba ang Martires dismissal of the Carpio-Morales dismissal? Former solicitor general Florin Hilbay doesn’t think so:

The order of former ombudsman Carpio-Morales dismissing Senator Villanueva for the PDAF scam was a public act. Former ombudsman Martires had no authority to reverse that decision in secret, thereby depriving the public or any interested party from questioning his decision before the Supreme Court. Therefore, Ombudsman Remulla can treat the secret memo as having had no effect and can proceed with his intention to request the Senate to enforce the original order of dismissal. https://www.facebook.com/AttyHilbay/

Pero huwag nang ibalik sa Senado. Ayon kay Senator Ping Lacson:

“The jurisdiction of the Senate committee on ethics does not cover offenses allegedly committed by the members of the Senate before being elected as senators,” Lacson explained in a Viber message on Tuesday. https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/

Derecho na dapat sa Supreme Court ang appeal. Here’s hoping the Supremes don’t fail us yet again. But if they do — puro mga DDS nga pala ang nakaupong mahistrado, except for one, okay, maybe two — huwag tayo magugulat. Matinik ang mag-amang Villanueva; they knew exactly how to play Digong 2016-18, which led to that dismissal. This time, I wouldn’t put it past them to make it a DDS issue vs BBM. I hear Mocha is already on defend-Joel mode. Who’s next, that meowing Rep?

Guilty Until Proven Innocent

I Dare Say, Now More Than Ever In Our History, Politicians Are Suspects!
People have lost trust in government and government officials.
Honestly, who can blame them?
So here’s a thought: WHAT IF we all just resign and allow a Snap Election.
From The President, Vice President, Senate, and Congress. With One Important Addition – No Incumbent From The Above Can Run For 1 Election Cycle.

Senator Alan Peter Cayetano‘s call for a snap election, while unconstitutional and politically fraught, is quite noteworthy in that he “honestly” concedes that they all deserve our distrust — an indirect implicit tacit admission of Guilt.

Of course walang nag-second the motion sa mga pinaparinggan niyang opisyales. Because why nga naman should they resign, lalo na yung mga newly-elected, and what about the truly innocent (if when where) any?

As for the guilty, why nga naman would they admit Guilt, when the Law says “innocent until proven guilty”, and experts as they apparently are at corruption, they were are uber careful not to leave behind any signatures or footprints, literal or digital, that would tie them to the crime in any way. No receipts signed, no photos/video showing them personally in the act of receiving bags and bags of cash, because, you know, they have trusted staff for that, who know exactly what to do, as does everyone positioned and greased along the bureaucratic hierarchy of corruption, all the way up to the “proponent” | sponsor | “funder” ng project who-must-not-be-named, who secretly gets anywhere from 20 to 40 percent of those funds, who is are the Most Guilty for not caring about the substandard and the ghost, which means not caring about the well-being of the people they’re supposed to be serving, whose taxes and loans they steal from in the millions, billions, trillions of pesos. Cunning and unscrupulous and greedy, yes. But innocent? In what world?

Believe it or not, the legal maxim “innocent until proven guilty” is based on the long-impugned premise that humans are inherently good, therefore one accused of wrongdoing is more likely innocent and less likely guilty, and so it is the burden of the accuser to prove the guilt of the accused. Pero hindi ba kabaligtaran iyan ng Catholic premise of “original sin” na ating kinagisnan kinlakhan pinaniniwalaan, the basic premise being that humans are inherently evil, as demonstrated by Adam and Eve when they ate of the “forbidden fruit”, which is why mayroong Baptism, Confession, and Communion, even Extreme Unction, ang simbahan as cleansing sacraments?

Whether humans are born good or evil has been debated by philosophers for centuries. Aristotle argued that morality is learned, and that we’re born as “amoral creatures” while Sigmund Freud considered new-borns a moral blank slate. Anyone who has read “Lord of the Flies” will expect children to be fully-fledged sociopaths just waiting to be freed from their adult-imposed shackles to (spoiler alert) start a cult and brutally attempt to kill each other.

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/

In this light, and given the incontrovertible Evidence : of miserable killer floods that we are all witness to, and victims of, the ruling elite of senators and congressmen so far named cannot blame us for judging them as Hobbes would, i.e., Guilty Until Proven Innocent,

Thanks to Senator Ping Lacson‘s investigations and Blue Ribbon Committee hearings, the systemic corruption in government ay pinatunayan ng isang Usec at dalawang engineer ng DPWH at ng mag-asawang contractor — corruption that goes all the way up to the proponent senators and congress reps, na halos mangalahati ang kabig na kickback o komisyon sa bawat proyekto, kung kaya’t kinakapos ang pondo, kung kaya’t mumurahin at kulang-kulang ang materyales na ginagamit, at di matibay o maayos ang disenyo, kaya’t lalo pang grumabe ang problema: konting ulan, lubog agad!

These are eye-opening consciousness-raising times when the Law is not held in high esteem, not when there are ways around it for the rich and powerful in Congress and everywhere else in government. These are mind-boggling times, an occasion to change mindset, from innocent-until-proven-guilty to Guilty Until Proven Innocent.

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.

I’m not saying the buck stops with the Senate Prez and the Speaker, but I’m giving whistleblower PBBM the benefit of the doubt vis a vis flood-control corruption. Besides, he has immunity from suit while he is president. But here’s hoping he submits to the people’s clamor that some of the ICI hearings be livestreamed.

PROF. ANTONIO CONTRERAS: The ICI must avoid ,,, extremes: the opacity that breeds suspicion and the spectacle that breeds distortion. A hybrid model offers the best path forward. Under this approach, the committee would conduct closed-door technical sessions to examine sensitive documents, hear confidential testimonies, and cross-check data free from external pressure. These sessions would prioritize accuracy, witness protection, and legal integrity. Once the committee has verified facts and established findings, it should then hold public hearings focused on questioning top officials, presenting major evidence, and explaining conclusions in plain language. These open sessions would allow the public to witness justice in action without jeopardizing the investigation’s integrity. https://www.manilatimes.net/

Above all, we want to see heads roll.

JAKE MADERAZO: The scandal does not end with DPWH officials and contractors. The accusations leveled by  (Roberto) Bernardo, (Henry) Alcantara and (Brice) Hernandez against Senators Joel Villanueva, Jinggoy Estrada, Chiz Escudero, former House Appropriations Chair Zaldy Co and former House Speaker Martin Romualdez must be held to the same standard.

The Filipino people are tired of watching the powerful walk free after orchestrating grand heists against the nation. The law must be enforced without fear or favor. There can be no bail, no backdoor deals, no escapes through technicalities. Those implicated—whether DPWH officials, bagmen, contractors, or lawmakers—must be prosecuted to the fullest extent and  jailed during the trial without bail. https://opinion.inquirer.net/

Guilty until proven innocent! Whistleblowers welcome!