Senate tumult

The beef of the pro-Duterte senators seems to boil down to selective prosecution.

This was their complaint over the probe conducted by the House of Representatives and by Sen. Panfilo Lacson when he headed the Blue Ribbon committee, and now by the Office of the Ombudsman and the Department of Justice.

They were miffed that Lacson recommended to the ombudsman the investigation of several of his fellow senators while brushing aside the testimony of ex-Marine Orly Guteza and similar stories given in a press conference by 18 former soldiers, about the alleged delivery of suitcases of cash to President Marcos, his son Ilocos Norte Rep. Sandro Marcos and cousin Martin Romualdez.

Also, that they changed pesos into millions of dollars from Zaldy Co, allegedly giving the money to Antonio Trillanes ostensibly for the expenses of folks from the International Criminal Court when ICC teams investigating the drug war killings visited the country.

The chaos in the Senate is actually becoming the best justification for the ICC to step in.

Lacson said he was leery of inconsistencies in the stories of the 18. As for Guteza, the guy remains MIA, like Dela Rosa.

Still, a good way to put to rest the accusation of the pro-Duterte bloc of selective prosecution is to pursue the stories of Guteza and the 18 men. If they’re liars, Lacson and his colleagues should be able to easily puncture holes in their stories.

Yesterday, six of the DDS senators (where were the others?) ended their boycott and finally showed up at the Senate, with the 18 in tow, who mostly repeated their accusations.

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Noteworthy though is that this time, the 18 omitted senators they implicated in their affidavit – Loren Legarda and Mark Villar, who belong to the Cayetano group – while including Senators Tito Sotto and Erwin Tulfo of the 12-member bloc as well as members of the House justice committee and the team that will be prosecuting Vice President Sara Duterte in her impeachment trial.

Also, the 18 claimed to have been given P50,000 each and new iPhones by former national police chief Nicolas Torre, arresting officer of Rodrigo Duterte, in exchange for retracting their previous statements and turning over their old phones, which allegedly contained photos to prove their stories.

National Bureau of Investigation Director Melvin Matibag, meanwhile, claimed the 18 were paid P5 million each for their appearance yesterday.

Romualdez is already under a travel ban ordered by the Sandiganbayan upon the request of Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla, whose office has received the partial Blue Ribbon report transmitted by Lacson. Remulla has said Romualdez may face charges for money laundering, malversation of public funds and conspiracy to commit plunder.

The conspiracy angle can be even tougher than plain plunder to prove in court beyond reasonable doubt. This has fueled suspicions that the ombudsman might be readying a case designed for dismissal. But he has also said the evidence requirement is lighter for malversation, a non-bailable offense that could warrant life in prison.

Romualdez, implicated in a foreign news report together with BBM and Sandro in an alleged intricate large-scale global money laundering operation, has warned that he’s not going to be a scapegoat or fall guy: “I will not go quietly and I will not go down alone.”

The resigned House speaker, the original arch enemy of VP Sara, is BBM’s Achilles heel. The credibility of BBM’s anti-corruption crackdown hinges a great deal on how his administration handles the accusations against his once favorite cousin.

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Whatever you think about him, you have to give credit to Sen. Francis Escudero for showing up at the Senate last Wednesday to break the impasse and get chamber proceedings going.

No longer the Solid Bloc 11, the new 12-member grouping promptly got last-minute work done, electing a Senate president pro tempore, Sherwin Gatchalian, declaring all seats vacant (including that of the Senate president) and reorganizing the committee memberships.

Gatchalian presided over the session as an “acting Senate president” or SP, who later declared the adjournment sine die of the session.

As expected, Alan Peter Cayetano challenged the quorum of 12, his ouster as SP and reorganization of the committees.

But in optics alone, Cayetano’s claim of leadership, posted online reportedly from a pricey restaurant, is trumped by the image of Gatchalian occupying the seat of the Senate presiding officer, with the Senate mace on the rostrum beside him, right there on the session hall.

Such are the wages of absenteeism. If you want to lay claim to the position, Senator Alan Peter, you have to occupy that seat. Not virtually, by AI, but in person.

He and some of the members of his bloc are insisting that the tumult at the Senate is not about him holding on to power or the impeachment of VP Sara, but about accountability in the flood control corruption scandal.

This is coming from a group whose Blue Ribbon members include those facing formal investigation or court indictment in connection with the flood control mess, with one of them already in detention without bail.

The group, however, is raising a point that resonates among many – that in probing the flood control and budget anomalies, the administration is going easy on people close to BBM, including his son and cousin as well as former officials in the Office of the President.

There are people, lawyers and non-lawyers alike, who have already jumped to several conclusions.

Among these is that lawmakers led by Romualdez, with Co as his consigliere, several senators and executive officials systematically looted public coffers through creative budgeting and received billions in kickbacks from private contractors. Sandro Marcos, a newbie congressman, is also seen to have benefited from the system while BBM at best looked the other way.

Whether these perceptions are accurate or not, we should thank the ugly breakup of the UniTeam for revealing the deep rot in our society. As the ongoing political turbulence is showing, the warring camps deserve each other.

But first, the Senate mess must be straightened out. President Marcos may have to step in.

Our nation can’t have a paralyzed legislature. We don’t deserve this mess.