By Frank Wenceslao
The feedbacks Pamusa got last year from Filipinos at home and overseas trended more of giving up on the Aquino administration. Sara Soliven’s 1/08/14 piece (GlobalBalita.com) is an exception though, critical and disappointed but hoping President Aquino could turn around the nation’s deterioration. Coincidentally, several analyses similarly faulted Aquino’s over-reliance on his first team in governing the country as though he can no more recruit patriotic Filipinos rely on who can correctly follow the beat if governing is like conducting an orchestra.
Worse, Aquino relies on people in most sensitive positions who are basically and predominantly pencil-pushing law graduates lacking experience in-depth exposure to real world problems in legal practice before their current positions. They have undergone in-service training with a sense of arrogance from the reflected glory of his friendship and unexpected rise to power. Instead of improving their knowledge in the interface of law, political economy and good governance to help the President succeed, these officials are like birds who assume that standing on a carabao’s back enable them to gain part of its strength.
On political economy, with the possible exception of Cesar Purisima, Rogelio Singson, Carlos Petilla and a few other technocrats, Aquino’s top-level advisers are lawyers lacking rudimentary knowledge or experience on how international law, diplomacy and cooperation bind economic interdependence of nations. A bitter critic even said that compared to Marcos’ technocrats’ such as Cesar Virata, Jimmy Laya, Gerry Sicat, etc. who are naturally responsible also for Marcos’ perfidies, Aquino’s advisers comparatively are at a level when students have yet to understand the correlation of man-made laws with economic laws.
Despite knowing at outset that corruption is the country’s most debilitating problem, Aquino’s top advisers continue to use failed criminal justice procedure that hasn’t sent a single big fish to jail and ignore the latest tools, weapons, prosecutorial discretion, and international cooperation agreements against corruption (ICAACs) proffered, for instance, from Pamusa’s 6-year research relied upon by Latin American countries, India, Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea, etc. including the World Bank to effectively reduce corruption that it doesn’t impede economic development like what’s stunted the Philippines since the end of WW II. Sad to say, after coming to grips corruption can’t really be eliminated several countries notably South Korea, Malaysia and Thailand behind the Philippines in economic growth have overcome impediments and are now ahead in economic growth, wealth creation and employment generation that jobless Filipinos and labor’s new entrants badly need forcing them to try their luck in foreign lands in turn causing social problems at home.
Aquino also knew from the start, his success or failure would depend on how he could minimize the loss of the nation’s resources to corruption and disasters while optimizing the productive output and economic returns from what’s available and the country’s corrupt leaders’ ill-gotten wealth that can be recovered. He should’ve changed his top national government officials and those of PAGCOR, PCGG and other sensitive offices at the latest on the third year of his administration after concluding who did their best but were still found wanting. He could’ve done this splendid PR strategy while many critics wanted to pull the rug under his feet.
Yet, he developed a habit of clearing subordinates of wrongdoing even when no investigation is conducted that diminished his credibility which is the most valuable political capital of a leader to rally the people in time of emergencies. How could friendship with DILG undersecretary Rico Puno be so important that it took Aquino days to fire him after Archbishop Oscar Cruz came out on a limb to pinpoint Puno as one of the Aquino officials cuddling jueteng operators?
Aquino should’ve stood firmly with both feet on his “tuwid na landas” to create jobs of which millions could’ve been created if only the DOJ, OMB and the whole criminal justice system didn’t get their eyes off the anomalies carried over from the Arroyo presidency; fired those responsible for the billions of PAGCOR’s earnings wasted away in a “sweetheart” online casino deal with Roberto Ongpin’s Philweb corporation allegedly nursed by Aquino’s relatives (Tanjuatcos) on the Sumulong side; left no stone unturned to identify the scam operators like Janet Napoles and her co-conspirators stealing billions of budgetary funds with fake NGOs under the noses of the Department of Budget and Management officials; and took the PCGG to task for spending billions in 27 years of existence yet couldn’t stop Marcos’ brother-in-law, Kokoy Romualdez, to again run away with his $200-million net worth of looted public assets he easily passed on to his widow and heirs while the Sandiganbayan and Supreme Court justices were looking the other way.
Could Aquino or his top officials hiding explosive secrets that they are afraid Alexandra Prieto-Romualdez, president of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, might expose vis-à-vis the dismissal of Kokoy Romualdez’s (her father-in-law) graft charges that enabled the lifting of the PCGG sequestration on his incredible assets that can only be ill-gotten and part of Marcos’ ill-gotten wealth? Did the PCGG object to lifting sequestration off Kokoy Romualdez’s mind-boggling P8.6 billion net worth Forbes Magazine has found out, or should the agency officials be investigated for complicity to violation of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act?
Could Aquino achieve a dramatic turnaround before the end of his term and firm up a lasting legacy? Today, the answer is “No”. The truth is I’ve only published the anomalies from fellow Filipinos’ feedbacks with legal bases and prima facie evidence according to Pamusa’s legal adviser. He’s a retired U.P. prof. and CA justice with a few years of U.S. practice that candidly told me I’ve become a Don Quixote to even imagine we can prosecute corruption cases in the Philippines. He says the DOJ, OMB and the whole criminal justice system are the same dogs of different collars similarly thinking the system despite advances of information technology and international cooperation against corruption is helpless against the nation’s political class. Hence, while a few judges and justices with Sec. de Lima and Ombudsman Carpio-Morales may have accepted the changes, there are people under them thinking they still can’t beat the odds because by the simple fact that justice delayed is justice denied, the bad boys win in the end of which they are of at least two categories, as follows:
1. The non-correctible corrupt of the category that Gen. Carlos Garcia’s prosecutor belongs who cooked the general’s plea bargain and was recently dismissed according to Steve Salonga.
2. The principled or honest investigator or prosecutor who lives within his means but obstinately disagrees the DOJ’s or OMB’s strategies for criminal investigation, evidentiary hearing and prosecutorial discretion up to trials in court. Government lawyers of this category often lose to better-funded defense counsel with legal tactics and strategies of prolonging litigation until a complainant or the case itself is fixed and the accused is acquitted with the government losing its case as usual. Pamusa had a recent example of No. 2 which I won’t single out any more not to embarrass him who presumably expressed his honest but awfully wrong opinion.
However, our legal adviser saw through the opinion a conspiracy to prevent Pamusa of being awarded the Service Agreement by with the DOJ or the OP and take U.S. legal actions allowed under the UNCAC and other ICAACs. Our legal adviser says that Ochoa, De Lima and Carpio-Morales should set aside any hesitancy and emphasize to Aquino with unmistakable clarity that without the Service Agreement the government won’t have a USDOJ-authorized anticorruption U.S. entity (Pamusa) to file corruption cases in the U.S. pursuant to the international agreements and the U.S. National Strategy to Internationalize Efforts Against Kleptocracy, thus hasten the search and recovery of Marcos’ and cronies’ ill-gotten wealth as well as the illicit assets that after his fall of Filipinos or ex-Filipinos have enriched themselves from the proceeds of corruption.
Aquino and his team should hurry up if they wish to establish his long lasting legacy of breaking up the “backbone of graft and corruption” and widely open the Philippines to domestic and foreign investors discouraged by the twin evils. Besides, it is inevitable Pamusa will offer the Service Agreement to the next administration and being disappointed with Aquino and his first team, it is not remote they will be first in the crosshairs of the anticorruption legal action Pamusa may decide to take.
Expect that Pamusa will adopt very soon a simpler anticorruption action after its research team has meanwhile come up with another “headache” to those to be targeted. In order to strengthen America’s fight against corruption, President George W. Bush had issued Presidential Proclamation 7750 in part, under Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which allows the U.S. President by proclamation to “suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants” into the United States whenever such entry “would be detrimental to the interest of the United States.” Entry is denied when evidence is shown that, e.g. a Filipino or naturalized U.S. citizen is (or was?) involved in public corruption that has serious adverse effects on the national interest of the United States to enhance the success of the UNCAC and ICAACs as a component of U.S. foreign policy.
Like a deputy sheriff in the Old West, Pamusa has now two (2) six-shooters in its belt to fight Philippine corruption in the U.S. The first is to ask a respondent to step up, account for his illicit assets from the proceeds of corruption, negotiate settlement or be barred from entry to America by Pamusa submitting evidence to the U.S. State Department to deny or suspend a visa of a person involved in corruption. The proof to be submitted can be in any number of evidence, such as the acquisition of U.S. property manifestly beyond his legitimate income at the time.
Of course, to cleanse his record of any involvement in corruption, a person may negotiate settlement with the Recovered Assets Office (RASO) to be created pursuant to the amnesty provision of the law creating the Department of Emergency Preparedness and Management (DEPM). RASO will determine how much illicit assets a person has from the proceeds of corruption to be returned to the National Treasury and be earmarked for funding the relief of victims and recovery from the devastation caused by emergencies and disasters in the future.
Or could political and family considerations be preventing Aquino, Ochoa, De Lima and Carpio-Morales to let Pamusa have the Service Agreement and file corruption cases in the U.S. even if in the end the Aquino administration has nothing to show as a successful anticorruption achievement? Pamusa has a solution for this. That is, before filing corruption charges in the U.S. Pamusa is willing to wait but not later than June 30, 2014 for the DEPM law’s approval and its amnesty provision for out-of-court settlement of corruption charges against current and former public officials in the post-Marcos administrations up to the end of Aquino’s presidency on 6/30/16 and their family members and close associates or the private businessmen and individuals that colluded with them in perpetrating corruption and also illegally enriched themselves; Provided, that, they did not cause enormous economic damage to the country as defined in the law.
Probable respondents may also negotiate settlement out-of-court without publicity in the U.S. under USDOJ supervision of their liabilities in accordance with the DEPM law’s amnesty provision. Of course, the conditions for settlement in the Philippines and the U.S. have similar applications unless contrary to either country’s laws.
IN CONCLUSION, THEREFORE, Pamusa now awaits the Service Agreement to hasten the physical preparation and additional staffing to intensify the search and recovery of Marcos’ and cronies’ ill-gotten wealth and the illicit assets with which current and former officials of post-Marcos administrations have enriched themselves for a good part of the assets be received in the National Treasury before President Aquino’s term of office ends on June 30, 2016. I reiterate that the priority of targets will be decided by President Aquino based on the damage caused on the economy as defined in the law and the USDOJ’s definition of it coming from the proceeds of corruption or “a process or series of actions through which income of illegal origin is concealed, disguised, or made to appear legitimate (main objective); and to evade detection, seizure and taxation.”
The ball is in Malacañang and it’s now up to President Aquino to have Paquito Ochoa sign and send back the Service Agreement to Pamusa so we can launch it ASAP. Or at least do me the courtesy of a reply what’s holding it because any further disappointment we suffer could trigger Pamusa to act on its own (motu proprio) in the interest of the United States, the Philippines and its own. But rather than be like a bull in a Chinaware store and be hated by many Filipinos, the people behind Pamusa agree to consult President Aquino and ask for his advice which targets should be given higher priority to negotiate out-of-court settlement for the sake of national unity.
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