By Rod Kapunan
One need not be reminded that telling a lie is bad. That lie doubly becomes bad when the liar denies having stolen the money. It becomes triply bad when after stealing the money, the liar uses it to bribe to get what he wants.
That act of this lackluster President is both a sin and a crime. The Aquino government has practically put on payroll anybody just to get what he wants. Now he dares Congress to impeach him. PNoy even taunts them to kick him out of office because he knows the majority of the members have been reduced to mercenary minions. He knows they have their monetary equivalent. Such is the sad state of affairs we Filipinos now suffer under this obliquely pro-American stooge.
This hypocritical government who always wants to reaffirm honesty even if others are not should have known better that its allegations against the former Supreme Court chief justice Renato Corona now hangs in limbo because the charge of bribery, by any definition, is a serious form of dishonesty.
People are no longer interested in why Corona failed to disclose how much he earned while in office. They instead wonder why the Aquino government had to resort to bribery just to punish someone it perceived as a crook. People now fear the consequence of a miscarriage of justice experienced no less by our own chief justice.
All the contentious issues which were resolved in that infamous impeachment proceeding are now beside the point, if we might say. People will no longer believe Corona is guilty. instead, he is but one whom this hypocritical government purposely sentenced as guilty. For that matter and by the tenor of President Aquino’s statement, he did not deny the accusation of bribery. Rather, came out with an outlandish logic insisting that there could be no bribery if the money was given after the conviction, forgetting that bribery does not lose its venom after the purpose for which it was given has been complied with. Rather, it reinforces the truth that bribes were given to ensure the conviction of Corona!
Besides, this hypocritical government should understand that bribery is the worst crime a government leader can commit, and is specifically stated in the Constitution as a ground for the removal from office of a corrupt President. His conduct to bribe the senator-judges was a travesty of justice, for as the saying goes, “justice is the equalizer of things in our system of government.” In that forum, both the rich and the poor stand as equal even if at times such has become a theory and a mirage.
Alas, as news now filters out, the principal architect of the so-called “tuwid na daan” assisted by Vice President Mar Roxas personally courted some of the senator-judges offering them reward to ensure the impeachment of Corona. Senator Joker Arroyo said it right when he said, “the release was, at the outset, illegal as there was no law enacted for that scheme.” Maybe by giving it a new name, they could continue their syndicated disbursement of funds calling it Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP). On the contrary, it mired them deeper because it appears that the illegal disbursement was used to commit another, more serious act of bribing the senator-judges.
Having been addicted to it, they continued their syndicated modus operandi this time without the benefit of an appropriations law. Department of Budget and Management head Florencio Abad knew it was illegal, but as one observed, it was a case of “damn if they do and damn if they don’t”, for obviously they could not put in their reason they needed the money to ensure the conviction of one responsible for putting to history the hacienda of the legendary hypocrites in this country.
Despite that oozing evidence of corruption committed by this hypocritical government pirouetting on its roadmap called tuwid na daan, it remains undaunted because it thinks everything now could be translated to money politics. In fact, PNoy sees no valid reason why he should stop the release of the DAP because he now treats the entire funds of the Republic as his personal kitty that he can disburse to whom he feels has his trust and confidence. It is for this reason why the queue of corrupt politicians continues to swell because no recipient of bribe money would dare kick him out of office without endangering the financial largesse they receive to residually allow them to hang on to power and build their own political dynasty.
On the contrary, the apparatchik of this regime has intensified its counter propaganda. The mainstream media, the radio, television and newspapers, which are obviously pro-yellow, continue to belittle the exposé that began with the Napoles’ NGO scam. Like the Priority Developmental Assistance Fund (PDAF), the DAP has backfired. Everybody knows the Napoles’ modus operandi did not come as accident, but part of an elaborate plan to discredit the opposition. It was not a moral crusade to weed out the corrupt, but in preparation for the coming election to sustain the credibility of these credulously corrupt hypocrites. Be it about PDAF or DAP, one thing is clear: It was used by PNoy and by his usurping predecessor as their carrot and stick to enforce obedience from an ever hungry members of Congress.
In fact, the return of the pork barrel eliminated the traditional wrangling between the Office of the President and the Legislature because all that was needed to keep them silent was to regularly fatten them. It was easy, much that it was the President who determines who should be given, the amount to be given, when it should be given, the vehicle to use as cover for the fund allocation, and the project that should be funded. The only remaining step was for the senators and congressmen to negotiate with the person in charge of the project or the NGO appointed by DBM to squeeze for their commission rebate.
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