Blue Ribbon heads reunited in trial

Even before yesterday’s 50th anniversary of the powerful Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, several of its past chairmen were already having a reunion of sorts – at the impeachment trial of President Estrada.

Six of the committee’s 12 former chairmen are key players in the impeachment trial: Senate President Aquilino Pimentel, Senators Franklin Drilon and Teofisto Guingona, Quezon Rep. Wigberto Tañada, former Ambassador to the US Ernesto Maceda and Isabela Rep. Heherson Alvarez.

Pimentel, Drilon and Guingona sit as judges in the impeachment court, Tañada is one of the 11 prosecutors from the House of representatives, Maceda is the President’s spokesman for anything related to the trial and Alvarez was one of those who filed an impeachment case against Mr. Estrada.

Pimentel was head of the committee from 1998 to 2000, Drilon from 1995 to 1998, Alvarez, 1995 to 1996, Maceda, 1992 to 1993, Tañada 1990 to 1991 and Guingona, from 1987 to 1990.

It was during the watch of Pimentel that the Senate panel, officially called the Committee on Accountability of Public Officers and Investigations, held a probe on allegations by Ilocos Sur Gov. Luis "Chavit" Singson that the President received hundreds of millions of pesos from illegal gambling operators.

It was also during the term of Pimentel that the committee investigated the alleged P11-billion National Centennial Expo scam, the alleged mismanagement of the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ Retirement and Separation Benefit Systems, operations of a syndicate forging land titles allegedly in cahoots with the Land Registration Authority, the alleged Department of Education textbook anomaly and the alleged $13-billion secret bank account of the family of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

Guingona’s privilege speech accusing the President of taking jueteng bribes also triggered a full-blown Senate probe into the allegations.

The probe, however, has been overtaken by the impeachment trial.

The other past Senate Blue Ribbon Committee chairmen include Lorenzo Sumulong, Lorenzo Tañada, Mariano Jesus Cuenco, Rosseller Lim, Eulogio Balao and Raul Manglapus.

Among the prominent cases investigated by the panel in the past five decades were the Harry Stonehill case, the Plaza Miranda bombing, the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant and the privatization of Petron.

Pimentel led the anniversary activities by opening a photo exhibit on the milestones and other significant activities of the panel.

This select body is empowered not only to look into irregularities involving public officials and employees, it can also recommend the prosecution of persons or entities found to have broken the law.

Pimentel said the government bureaucracy has multiplied many times over in the past 50 years and it is easy for crooks to remain hidden in the layers of the bureaucracy unless an anomaly is investigated.

"That reason, among others, justifies the continued existence of the Blue Ribbon," Pimentel said.