by Lito Banayo
from MALAYA
If Senator and former PNP Chief Ping Lacson had not accidentally discovered the double appropriation for the stretch of road called C-5 during the budget deliberations of the Senate in 2008, we would be in the throes of proclaiming Manuel B. Villar Jr. as the next president of the benighted republic. And if former DPWH Secretary and former PNP Chief Hermogenes Ebdane Jr. did not comply with his constitutional and legal obligation to open the records of a public institution such as that which he headed to the Senate, specifically to Senator Jamby Madrigal, then those documents (most of the 900 pieces of documentary evidence presented to the SCOW came from the DPWH) would not have surfaced to draw the true story of Manuel Villar’s abuse of power and betrayal of the public trust.
Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile had not yet come up with a committee report on November 14, 2009, the eve of Sen. Loren Legarda Leviste’s announcement of her political marriage with Manuel Villar. But because she had to look good, as in a bride who had to be made-up before she pronounces (political) marriage vows, Villar and his legal acolytes in the Senate had to do a fast break, in the form of a premature Resolution which jumped the gun on the SCOW Committee Report. Eleven senators signed up. First, the old reliables — Joker, Nene, the Cayetano siblings. Then, that other member of the Wednesday Club, Kiko Pangilinan. And Miriam, who Villar was supporting in her Senate re-election bid, never mind if she is a certifiable GMA loyalist, while Villar claims to be “opposition”. (Miriam of Mina, Iloilo, not exactly Pototan as a recent acquaintance in Iloilo corrected my earlier description of her local origin, can shift from opposition pro-Erap to administration pro-GMA with such ease that it leaves the stupid voters breathless). Then Bong and Lito, those two actors who would never ever do anything without first checking with their “handlers” in the stinking palace. Then Gringo and Jinggoy, after much persuasion by Villar, mismo. With ten votes, Villar presented the resolution to his political bride-to-be, for the 11th signature. And then he tried to get Edong Angara to sign too, but the lawyer in Edong stopped him from giving in. What would his ACCRA partners say, if despite such clear documentary evidence which he had earlier confided to them and others in their profession as “very clear and very damning”, he would sign a resolution of innocence? Para naman siyang hindi abogado, and whether for friendship, pakikisama or whatever else, Senator Angara could not throw away his self-respect.
So it was left to Villar, mismo!, to become the 12th signatory to the resolution to exonerate himself. He, he, he, “in defense of his honour” kuno.
But that was no more than useless scrap of paper, as Lacson described it, because there was as yet no SCOW committee Report to vote upon. Chastened, Sen. Jinggoy Estrada withdrew his signature, claiming that he was told the resolution would only be released after the SCOW report, or simultaneously. So twelve became eleven.
Enrile then finalized the report and quietly sent copies to the nine other senators before and during the holidays. Lacson, Madrigal, Roxas, Aquino, Biazon, plus lawyers Escudero, Gordon and Angara. Migs Zubiri didn’t bother to ask his Lakas-Kampi bosses for “guidance” and signed immediately. Enrile talked to party-mate Jinggoy, who also affixed his signature, thereby permanently nullifying his earlier signature on the Villar-sponsored, Cayetano-written November 14 resolution. The Liberals talked to Kiko, their born-again member after his political loyalties got muddled by too much wining and dining each Wednesday, courtesy of then Senate President Villar. JPE”s chief of staff talked to his “anak-anakan” Gringo, but the senator rebuffed his “foster” father. So including himself, Enrile had to settle for 12, still a majority in a chamber where only 22 could participate. Gringo could have been the 13th signatory versus a decimated Villar 9, but apparently his commitment to Villar was too deep and too big for his erstwhile patron to chip away any.
Nothing that moves in the Senate cannot be predicted or smoked-out early enough, the chamber being quite small. When the handwriting was quite evident that a clear majority of two could upset Villar’s “ascent” in the polls, the Department of Justice under Agnes Devanadera, the lady lawyer who tried her damnedest best to become a SC demi-goddess, and failing the same, would just settle for a congressional seat just like her other cabinet colleagues, came to timely rescue. Through State Prosecutor Peter Ong, who could and would, be the Chief State Prosecutor (hopefully not) after Jovencito Zuno retires this month, they moved to include Ping Lacson in the celebrated Dacer-Corbito criminal case pending in the Manila RTC, on the basis of the flip-flopping statements of one Col. Cezar O. Mancao the flaws of which had already been established in the RTC case trial. Lacson hoped against hope that these people would resist pressure, that they would render the kind of justice demanded of them by their oaths of office. But prosecutors can always easily weasel out of their sworn responsibility to do justice to every man, because they could reason out that it is up to the courts to dispose. And so they did, at just the right, the perfect timing.
If the judge issues the warrant of arrest, Lacson is immobilized. The Palace can then work on some of Enrile’s original twelve to “re-think” legal conviction for political expediency. Enrile could even be ousted from his perch (read “The Plot” in our Malaya archives, 19 Jan 2010). But JPE saw through the plot, and moved fast, released the report, and brought the onus of peer pressure and conscience upon those who might waffle. The Malacanang-Villar hatched plot to make Villar the resurrected Senate President was foiled, just in time.
Lacson for his part left the country on January 5, 2010, after talking to his spiritual adviser and confidante, retired Archbishop Oscar Cruz, and telling him that he would not give the Arroyos (husband and wife) the satisfaction of humiliating him and incarcerating him on trumped-up charges, for a “crime” on which he had no hand whatsoever. The erudite Oscar bade him farewell and God bless.
So, despite the lack of numbers, the Villarroyo coven could at least maneuver a lack of quorum, which they skilfully did. On the last session day, the nation saw how “weasels who skunked out” gave the Senate of the people its ignoble depart. The day was saved for the Villar gravy train, juices of which were used to “spin” ignobility into exoneration, as “failure to censure”. Packaged together with a nauseating predominance of television ads, ten times to one, “vindication” was engineered in timely survey findings which showed Villar catching up with Noynoy.
The Noynoy camp was beleaguered, perhaps shaken up from unwise stupor brought about by reckless confidence in early numbers. A more cautious judge would have tried to determine if probable cause indeed existed to charge Lacson, especially in light of the selective prosecution (why only Lacson, and not Erap as well, who was in the affidavits of Mancao and even Dumlao as well?) by the DOJ. But no, just when C-5 was banner story and Villar’s non-defense started to be shown up for its emptiness, a warrant against Lacson comes out. C-5 is bumped off the headlines and the airwaves, and “fugitive” Lacson becomes top story, with a supra-verbose idiot from the NBI spinning stories about “red notices” and international manhunts.
Even the stinking palace calls on Lacson to face the justice system, and the usual liars like Rosebud are trotted out from hibernation. Did they create the same noise when everybody was looking for Garci? Or Joc-Joc, now the Nacionalista Party candidate for governor of Capiz? Of course not. Lacson is the Arroyo Public Enemy Number One, responsible for Jose Pidal (2003), the fertilizer scam expose (2004), the NBN-ZTE deal (2007), the early-on telecoms scandal (2001), even the mention of Vicky Toh which infuriated El Gran Esposo so much and reportedly made unica hija Luli Arroyo cry. And in a bruising campaign, Lacson moving all over the country to warn the public against the dangers of electing another “transactional” trapo, with fingers caught in the C-5 at Taga cookie jar, then the Money Villarroyo presidential quest, up against the high numbers of Noynoy Aquino at that, could be seriously imperilled. After all, Ping Lacson has loyal followers all over the land, and in 2004 when he ran for president, against the cheating GMA and the popular FPJ, with the contest virtually a toss-up, the senator still polled 11%. Three and a half million voters still wrote his name in their ballot, even if they knew that the surveys said he would lose.
So why should Lacson, the Arroyo’s Public Enemy Number One, and the scourge of the surrogate presidential candidate Money Villarroyo, trust the present justice system, in a land where justices and judges and prosecutors take orders from Malacanang, and judicial decisions are up for sale, with lawyers pimping for “saleable” decisions?
(To be continued)
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