The Philippines is not a banana republic!

The biggest news we’ve heard so far is that finally the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has filed rebellion charges against those behind the coup attempt last February. They are former Sen. Gregorio Honasan and military officers like Marine Col. Ariel Querubin, former Army Scout Ranger commander Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim and former Marine commandant Maj. Gen. Renato Miranda and its civilian component — former University of the Philippines (UP) president Francisco Nemenzo, former Ambassador Roy Señeres, Pastor "Boy" Saycon of the Council of Philippine Affairs (COPA), businessman Jaime Regalario, Don Pepe Araneta and a few others.

Frankly speaking, I don’t know why it took the NBI a full eight months to file those more than obvious cases against these people and God knows how long this trial would last with our snail-paced justice system. But I will take the word of Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez that the NBI took extra care so that those accused won’t cry out "harassment." Truth to tell, if that coup succeeded, the names we listed here would have been the top officials of the military-civilian junta that they were trying to put in place.

One compelling evidence that civilians were involved in that coup plot was an article in Time Magazine (Asia edition) written by Nelly Sindayen who specifically mentioned a meeting in the house of former Tarlac Congressman Jose "Peping" Cojuangco where many of the named coup plotters gathered. Now why was Peping Cojuangco not in the NBI list, I really don’t know. But if you ask me, Peping Cojuangco is as part of this plot as all the names that we mentioned here. But a DOJ undersecretary told me that there are more names in the NBI list that haven’t been released yet.

But at least the die has been cast... that last February we had a failed coup and there were personalities behind this unwanted incident that turned into a comedy/tragedy. But we are still a nation of laws and as such, the suspects must be tried and if convicted, they must be jailed. If justice fails us against these plotters, then you better believe that Gringo Honasan would once again surface to try and bring down the government. It is time to stop this nonsense and show the world that Democracy, indeed, thrives strong and well in this country and more especially to the ASEAN... that the Philippines is not a banana republic!

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Now for the bigger news. Finally, the First Division of the Court of Appeals (CA) has ordered the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) to swear in the new nurses who did not benefit from the leakage. This should be good news to the 17,000 examinees who took the controversy-ridden nursing licensure exams last June. However, the CA ruled that 1,687 examinees would have to retake the two portions of the five-part examinations — tests II and V, which are at the very core of this leakage.

With this news, at least the work of the NBI wasn’t in vain, when it released its report that only the examinees from the cities of Baguio and Manila were involved in the leakage, while the rest of the country was spared from it. Let me just say that the CA made a good decision in the light of this very controversial exam leakage. With the CA decision, now those nurses who didn’t take any part in the cheating can now go out and apply for jobs where they are needed... either here at home or abroad.

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Still on the justice front, remember the controversial cult leader, former San Jose, Dinagat, Surigao del Norte Mayor Ruben Ecleo, Jr., a.k.a. the Divine Master of the Philippine Benevolent Missionaries Association (PBMA), who is still in jail at the Bagong Buhay Rehabilitation Center (BBRC) in Cebu City for parricide? Well, we just learned that he was convicted... no, not yet on his parricide case… but by the Sandiganbayan’s First Division presided over by Associates Justice Teresita de Castro, Diosdado Peralta and Alexander Gesmondo for overpayment for the construction of two municipal buildings in San Jose.

Shades of Al Capone! While it is taking our justice system a long time to prove that Ecleo killed his wife, Alona, he gets convicted as former mayor of San Jose for graft and corruption! At this point, I don’t know whether this conviction means that Ecleo would have to be transferred to another jail or whether his conviction can commence even if he is still at the BBRC. With this news, we can only hope that the trial of his parricide case can move faster so that we can finally put this sordid tale of the Ecleos behind.

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We’ve written about the water woes of Cebu, which many people believed could be partially solved by the Carmen Bulk Water Project hatched by the Metropolitan Cebu Water District (MCWD) and the Ayala Stateland Consortium. The latest in that controversy is that the Ayala Stateland Consortium stubbornly but rightfully insisted for the payment of their development cost... after all, you cannot peg your water rates if you don’t know how long your water would last. Anyway, here’s an e-mail sent to me on the ways to solve Cebu’s water problems. This letter is self-explanatory.

"Dear Mr. Avila, This refers to your column in The Philippine STAR on Oct. 9, 2006. It is informative to know the cause of the gridlock in the implementation of the upgrading of Cebu’s water system. Sure enough, greed may be one of the reasons. On the brighter side, there are also Filipinos though with limited resources who are doing research work on the purification of water. The undersigned has two patents pending in the IPO. One of these has been gathering cobwebs in their office for five years now without us knowing when they would finish their work.

"The above technologies are 100 percent Filipino and fabricated in Pasil. One with bigger capacities is suited for towns and barangays with only a month’s lead-time. The smaller ones are designed for households throughout the country not reached by water districts. The latter does not require electricity. Both can purify very turbid and contaminated raw water such as rivers, lakes, surface runoffs and even effluents from wastewater treatments (for) drinking.

"To date, there are already seven plants built along the technology throughout the country. Both inventions are assisted and recognized by DOST and are consistent finalists in the National Inventors Week. Just asking a question, Mr. Avila, on why LWUA, NWRB, DENR and MWSS are not looking into these? Sincerely, Ernesto A. Labuntog [email protected]."

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns in The Freeman can also be accessed through The Philippine STAR website (www.philstar.com). He also hosts a weekly talkshow, "Straight from the Sky," shown every Monday, 8 p.m., only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 of SkyCable. Bobit’s columns can also be accessed at www.shootinginsidecebu.blogspot.com.