PNoy can be most guilty

 

By Rod Kapunan


The Aquino administration should stop all the foolishness of pretending to be honest because everybody knows it is not. Being too preoccupied with jailing all those it perceives as corrupt is generating cynicism instead. The bad thing about the prurient political grandstanding that this yellow government is honest is that more and more people are inclined to believe it is not.

To be sure, should the Supreme Court declare unconstitutional and illegal Florencio “Butch” Abad’s formula on how to defraud the government through its Disbursement Acceleration Program or DAP, that would constitute an indictment that this government is not as honest as it claims. It is immaterial whether President Aquino would be able to hurdle the impeachment case that will be lodged against him much that the people are aware that such a dysfunctional quasi-judicial process is but a numbers game and this arrogant government is confident that the corrupt yellow-card bearing majority will continue to patronize him for his hearty system of bribing them.

Given this likely scenario, legally and psychologically, the cases filed by the Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales is considered beforehand a losing case just as the Supreme Court earlier declared unconstitutional the Priority Developmental Allotment Fund (PDAF), commonly known as pork barrel fund. It will be considered 90 percent lost once the High Court finally comes out to declare the Abad formula unconstitutional for that would defang the viper of its venomous vengeance.

Given that possibility, how could PNoy secure the conviction of the three senators, namely: Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Ramon “Bong’ Revilla of plunder, malversation etc. when the accuser charging them started it all, which act he initiated has been declared unconstitutional? There is a saying which says, “Let no one come to court with unclean hands” or in Latin, Impuris manibus meno accedat curiam. Concretizing that, how could PNoy proceed to lock up the three, including Senators Enrile’s and Revilla’s chief of staff Gigi Reyes and Richard Cambe, when it was he who allowed that crime to happen?

Of course, this pretending-to-be-honest government could well raise the defense that the diversion of public funds began during the time of Mrs. Arroyo. But that flimsy alibi would not help exculpate him because he allowed the corrupted process to continue. The question now is how can PNoy pin down those he ensnared to take the bait for plunder and malversation which is rooted on his unconstitutional and illegal act of playing Santa Claus using the people’s money?

While we are not saying those accused and other solons who have been heckling about the gross incompetence and ineptitude of this puppet government are not guilty, nonetheless their trial will just be another judicial circus our people is about to witness. This we say because the basis for which they are being tried has already been declared unconstitutional and illegal, and the principal actor of that illegal act is no less than PNoy and his chief lieutenant Butch Abad. Even from a layman’s point of view, the accused senators can only be tried on the basis of the subsequent acts initiated and committed by PNoy and his bright boys in Malacañang. It is a circus because the mastermind is the one prosecuting the accessories, which could not happen even the courts of planet Jupiter.

The legal strategists of this pretending-to-be-honest government also failed to analyze that those about to be charged cannot even be considered accomplices to a crime. It is those people in Malacañang who stand as mastermind with Janet Lim-Napoles acting their accomplice. At most, the three senators and their aides can be charged as accessories for it appears they merely benefited from the proceeds or fruits of the crime. They can never be charged as mastermind or accomplices because they never conceived and cooperated in the execution to ensure the release of the public funds. They are mere recipients in the illegal release of public funds by Malacañang in close cooperation with Napoles.

If what columnist Belinda Oliveros Cunanan wrote -- that Malacañang borrowed from Napoles the huge amount to bribe the senator-judges just to make sure they will vote for the conviction of the impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona (who in one of his shabby decisions convicted the money of the accused but not the accused) and that the pre-Christmas gift-giving took place at the residence of Senator Loren Legarda in Forbes Park -- is true, that will prove the fact that Napoles was in cahoots with the people in Malacañang. It is ironic because the lady which Malacañang has accused of defrauding the government has at one time acted as its creditor to provide it the funds for President Aquino to bribe the senator-judges.

To simplify that, the connivance between Malacañang and Napoles is evident, while the alleged connivance between Napoles and the accused senators is something many would call a drawing. It is for this why the so-called list of names and amount she gave, including the list and affidavit executed by her erstwhile employee turned whistleblower, Ben Hur Luy, is considered a mere scrap of paper. Aside from being self-serving, it will not suffice to prove that the amount came from the coffers of the government. One must not forget that the aggrieved party is the government presided by one who has been pretending-to-be-honest.

It is for this why government prosecutors led by Ombudsman Morales must rely on their own evidence by presenting all the original copies and papers submitted for the processing, approval and release of government funds; the disbursement papers; the special allotment release order (SARO); the vouchers and all those checks issued by the government to prove their case against those accused, and not on the mere list prepared by Napoles and Luy. The list will not prove anything that the accused stole from the government. Only those public documents and papers now in the custody of the government, including the audit made by Commission on Audit chairman Grace Pulido-Tan, will prove that as they will determine the exact amount lost by the government.

Should the government fail or refuse to submit them in court, then they would have no case against Napoles and all those accused senators and their respective chiefs of staff because the implication is that the government does not know how much it lost, which is a crucial element in the crime of malversation and plunder. The catch however is, should it submit all those official documents, receipts, checks, SAROs and vouchers that would now point at PNoy and his subalterns in the DBM and in COA as having conspired to make possible the systematic looting of government funds.


rpkapunan@gmail.com

http://manilastandardtoday.com/2014/06/21/pnoy-can-be-most-guilty