Malacañang on Gonzales: Is he guilty?

MANILA, Philippines - Are you guilty?

This was the message of Malacañang to former National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales who said he felt alluded to by the statements of President Aquino that some people were instigating the Kirams to press their claims over Sabah.

Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said Princess Jacel, the daughter Sulu Sultan Jamalul Kiram III, had dared the President to show proof of conspiracy.

“At the proper time,” Lacierda said, adding government agencies had been gathering evidence against the alleged collaborators of the Kirams.

As regards the person who denied being a collaborator, Lacierda remarked “Is he guilty?”

“The President never mentioned anybody. He said that ‘I will not name names until I have sufficient evidence’,” he said.

Lacierda said Gonzales and even former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo were mentioned in the questions thrown by reporters but not in the answers of Aquino.

“In fact, someone asked, ‘Does it go all the way to GMA (Arroyo)?’ We will not name names unless we have evidence. The President never mentioned names,” Lacierda stressed.

He said it was unfortunate that their plea to the Kirams fell on deaf ears while the government continued to appeal for maximum tolerance.

“We continue to exert efforts. Again, for the past three weeks, we have done everything possible, from sending emissaries, asking them to come back and we will talk,” Lacierda said.

Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) Gov. Mujiv Hataman said he has been receiving persistent reports purporting Gonzales was among those who instigated the followers of Kiram to lay claim over Sabah.

“I will confirm that there are raw reports about it reaching my office, fed by different sources. Of course I’m not taking the reports hook, line, and sinker. These are reports that need extensive validation,” he said.

Hataman also appealed to leaders in the region to avoid speculating on the ongoing hostilities in Sabah.

Nothing impeachable

Lacierda, on the other hand, said the government would want to protect all Filipinos and would not comment on whether the attacks of Malaysian forces were an overkill or could be justified.

“That’s a tactical question that you should ask the Malaysian authorities. I am not a military man. So, that is not something I am competent to answer…if I say something, they might misconstrue it as defending. I am in no position to answer tactical operations,” he said.

As regards the statements of former senator Richard Gordon that Aquino could be courting impeachment for violating the law defining the territories of the country, Lacierda said this is not the case.

He said Republic Act No. 5446 or the Baselines Law had been repealed by RA 9522.

“There was a Baselines Law that was enacted in the time of GMA (Arroyo). And it repealed Section 2, where the demarcations of Sabah were removed. So, I don’t know where Senator Gordon is getting his legal knowledge, but the law that he is invoking has already been repealed by the new Baselines Law,” Lacierda said.

Lacierda explained the new Baselines Law was questioned before the Supreme Court, and the high court ruled in very categorical terms that the new Baselines Law did not repeal the claim to Sabah.

Lacierda said at the moment, the government was trying to prevent a spillover of violence and that border patrols had been intensified.

The ARMM’s local government, social welfare, and health departments are also monitoring the situation of Filipinos dislocated by the hostilities in Sabah.

Tawi-Tawi Vice Gov. Ruby Sahali said local officials in all of the towns in the province have been mobilized to help monitor the possible influx of evacuees from Sabah.

“So far there are no reported evacuations yet. We just have to continue praying that all of these developments there will come to a peaceful end,” Sahali said.– With John Unson