It is amazing how former
government officials of the Arroyo Administration are crying foul over plunder
charges filed against them for their role in the release of approximately 23B
of Malampaya funds (an accumulation of royalty for the government on oil and
gas finds in the country), purportedly decreed by an EO issued by then
President GMA to attend to the urgent needs of the victims of typhoons Ondoy
and Pepeng. COA, however, finds in its report, and on which DOJ bases its case,
that they went NOT to typhoon victims, but to pockets of lawmakers, Arroyo cronies,
and executive officials as high up as former president herself Gloria Macapagal
Arroyo (GMA).
Ermita says he only
carried out the orders of the then president GMA. Former Budget Secretary and now
congressman Rolando Andaya echoes Ermita saying his job was simply ministerial.
But is it really plausible that these heads of offices who wield so much power
and clout with then president GMA would just carry out orders and release
budget involving billions of pesos all in faithful compliance with the mandate
of their office, and without consideration? I tell you that is a tough sell.
On whining why the
former president GMA is being indicted. What is the fuss? Even the P10B PDAF
scam, as narrated in statements sworn to separately by the whistleblowers,
covered the period ten years back, which puts it right within the 3-term (9
years) GMA regime which ended in 2010. Janet Lim Napoles herself, the PDAF Scam
mastermind, hinted in interviews prior to her surrender, that she was not the
boss, and instead referred to her boss as little girl or small girl. They saw
this coming, so the make-believe surprise play is not going to cut it.
It is not to say that I
am without beef with the Pnoy administration. I wrote in a previous post how
disappointed I was, so were many who until then fully supported him, at his insidious
double talk regarding pork barrel. While he said it was finally time for the
pork to vanish for good, he kept in his 2014 Budget some P450B in so-called
Special Purpose Fund, which he could direct the disbursement of as he would
please.
Again, these attempts,
never mind the subtlety with which they tried to portray innocence, are what
infuriate the Filipino people, inasmuch as they NOT only betray the president’s
one-upping them, but more than that, they insult them. How dare the president
and his, what appears now to be, not-so-bright boys think that the Filipino
people are too dumb to tell pork when it goes by another name?
Then came the DAP
debacle, which the flailing Jinggoy brought to fore, coloring it as bribe to
Senators for Voting to convict then Chief Justice Corona in his impeachment,
even as he later clarified it was not bribe, but incentive. It did not help
that they all chorused in defense of said DAP, arguing that there was legal
basis for it, for there simply was none. It was patently illegal.
It is these
miscalculations that would put the president at a collision course with his
bosses, who are now ready to flex their muscles. I am sure right now the
president is seeing enough that could provide the impetus to his untimely and drastic
ouster, if he is not careful.
If the president wants
to preclude a whopping precipitation of events, he must give up some heads. The
people are shouting for the blood of whoever architected DAP. Right now, it’s ABAD’s
head that towers the rest. Before the situation spins out of control, Pnoy must
ask Abad to bow out of office.
Sure, he must have
considered Abad’s genius as responsible for most of his administrations
praise-drawing initiatives, but the situation demands that he go, if the
president is to keep his head above water.
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