Stonewalling won’t help him

ON DISTANT SHORE
by Val G. Abelgas

In the past, nearly every senator lambasted the Arroyo administration for preventing Cabinet and military officials from testifying before the Senate on several controversial issues, saying that Malacanang was blocking legitimate efforts to ferret out the truth. Senators Alan Peter Cayetano, Joker Arroyo and Aquilino Pimentel Jr. were among those who valiantly stood to defend the Senate’s right to investigate controversial issues raised before the body.

Whatever happened between then and now? Why have these three distinguished senators suddenly emerged on the front line of the truth blockers in the case of their beleaguered friend Sen. Manny Villar? They vehemently opposed Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s Executive Order 646 that prohibited senior government and military officials from appearing before congressional investigators, and now they say Villar has every right not to answer the senators’ questions on Villar’s involvement in the C-5 controversy?

Where is the transparency that these three senators valiantly fought for until up to just a few weeks ago?

Villar, who is facing censure by his peers for allegedly intervening in the C-5 road extension project that resulted in the loss of P6.2 billion to the government and billions of pesos in direct and indirect benefit to his numerous real estate corporations, has steadfastly refused to appear before the Senate and answer questions pertaining to the controversy.

He instead appeared before Senate reporters and said he would not give in to demands by some of his colleagues to appear at the Senate, saying most of his accusers are running for president or seeking reelection in May.

“I have answered these issues a number of times. What they are saying in the report are all lies and politically motivated,” he told the media. If, indeed, Villar’s role in the C-5 controversy is above board, he should have nothing to fear, because as the saying goes “the truth will set him free.”

Senator Arroyo, who is fast becoming like his namesake in Malacanang, justified Villar’s non-appearance. “When you cannot expect justice, then there is nothing dishonorable for not participating,” said Arroyo, who has strayed far, far away from his militant image during the martial law years up until before the 2007 senatorial elections, where he ran under the party of the administration he used to criticize severely.

Pimentel, an opposition stalwart and like Arroyo was one of the staunchest defenders of freedom during the martial law years, seemed to have lost his usual decorum in defending Villar. He said, albeit jokingly, that Roxas certainly had his own “insertions” since he just got married. I cannot fathom if there is a more out-of-line, more contemptible comment than that, coming from a senator who for years has earned this writer’s respect for brilliance and decorum.
And the usually brilliant Cayetano, who had to face the irate Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile because Villar would not dare appear before his colleagues, was reduced to an immature street boy, resorting to name calling when she referred to Sen. Jamby Madrigal, one of Villar’s accusers, as “saling pusa.”

With all these topnotch lawyer-senators defending him on the floor, Villar probably thinks he does not need to have the courage to appear before the Senate to answer allegations in the C-5 controversy. He probably thinks, like the Malacanang tenant he dreams of replacing in 2010, that by stonewalling a bit longer, Enrile and company would back down and the people would eventually forget that they lost billions of pesos because an extension road project had to take a circuitous route allegedly to benefit the billionaire from Tondo.

Villar and his three allies in the Senate are protesting that Villar is being singled out because he is a leading presidential candidate. Precisely!
As one of the leading candidates, Villar has the obligation, nay a duty, to hurdle all questions to his integrity and credibility. As a man hoping to lead a country mired in corruption and poverty, he should be “beyond reproach.” The country does not need another leader who will be bogged down by allegations of corruption. What our country needs is a morally upright leader who can inspire not only the people, but also the bureaucracy, to shun corruption. What our country needs is a government dedicated to integrity and transparency.

For nine long years, the truth has been sacrificed by a leader who wants us to believe that stonewalling and deceiving the people are matters of “national interest.” And now we are being asked to elect another one of her kind? Heaven forbid.

(valabelgas@aol.com)