Next move please

Inside Congress
By Charlie V. Manalo
The Daily Tribune 

Yesterday, one of the country’s daily ran a story quoting sources in Congress that the Aquino administration disbursed at least P6.5 billion from the president’s pork, the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) before, during and after the impeachment trial of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona.

According to the story, P5 billion of the amount was given to members of the House of Representatives while the remaining P1.5 billion was shared by some members of the Senate.

The story further validates earlier statements made by Senators Jinggoy Estrada and Bong Revilla that Noynoy Aquino, using government funds, bribed the lawmakers into ousting the former Chief Justice.

In his privilege speech several weeks ago, Revilla quoted Noynoy telling him, “Pare, ibalato mo nasa kin yan. Kailangan talagang ma-impeach si Corona.”

That incident, Revilla said, occurred when he was invited (or picked up by Secretary Mar Roxas) to a breakfast at the Bahay Pangarap and ended up having a meeting with Noynoy.

To further substantiate his claim, Revilla added that Budget Secretary Butch Abad, the brains behind the DAP, was there to support Noynoy to convince him into convicting Corona, telling him, “Magtulungan tayo,” which could insinuate there would be a “give and take” situation should Revilla agree to vote for conviction. Bong gives in his guilty vote, and he takes home additional multi-million peso pork.

So now, we have the self-proclaimed anti-corruption champion turned himself into the chief corruptor.

But what baffles me is that despite these lawmakers coming out in the open, exposing Noynoy’s role in the Corona impeachment, bribing the members of both house of Congress just to oust Corona whom he disliked so much having been appointed by his predecessor, is that they always come up short of manifesting their talks into concrete actions.

It very clear Noynoy had bribed his way in violating the principles of the separation of powers among the branches of the government, to bribe the members of the legislative branch into removing Corona from office.

Even United Nationalist Alliance secretary general, Navotas Representative Toby Tiangco pointed out that the DAP was “actually invented to accelerate the Aquino Administration’s political agenda, and to establish their control over other co-equal branches of government, and had a very special purpose other than buoying up the economy.”

And yet, it always stops there. As if the lawmakers, after baring how Noynoy abused his office just to remove a perceived enemy, would always hit a roadblock.

We have to remember former President, now Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, is under hospital arrest for simply allowing former Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office general manager Rosario Uriarte to use P366 million of the agency’s intelligence fund for blood money for convicted OFWs languishing in the death row in other countries.

For that noble act, for saving the lives of the convicted OFWs, Mrs. Arroyo was charged with plunder. And that involved only P366 million.

In Noynoy’s case, we are talking of billions of pesos of people’s money spent just to satisfy his whims!
And we are not even talking here of the billions of pesos which could have been lost to corruption in the ongoing rehabilitation effort for the victims of super typhoon “Yolanda,” the hundreds of billions of pesos lost in smuggling particularly rice, etc.

This is only for one particular issue — the Corona impeachment. Spending over P6.5 billion just because Noynoy doesn’t like him? What an expensive caprice!

I think it’s time these lawmakers walk the talk. Take their pronouncements to the next level. Of course, given Noynoy’s abuses of public fund, the next logical move here is to impeach him.

To hell with the questionable survey results showing Noynoy still enjoys popularity and high trust rating. It’s highly questionable anyway.

What is important here is that these public officials have a sworn responsibility to the people, to serve them.

The people need you now. The people’s fight against corruption leads to Noynoy himself having emerged as the Chief Corruptor of the land. It’s time for you to make your next move.

http://www.tribune.net.ph/commentary/next-move-please