She had pointed the finger, as TV cameras whirred and journalists stared, at the Land Bank cashier who had been helping the government in uncovering the scandal.
Of course, it was a nightmare for the shocked and embarrassed cashier, Mrs. Acsa Ramirez. She had eagerly gone to meet the President, thinking she was going to be interviewed on the case, perhaps even commended – but instead she found herself being accused and condemned in full view of the media! Nothing will repair the damage done to her reputation – not even an abject apology from the President, which, unless I’m wrong, I doubt is forthcoming. It’s not in La Gloria’s nature, I fear, to make such a public admission of a mistake. That’s too bad, for a little humility would certainly humanize her and make her a more sympathetic kind of individual.
I’ve been strongly urging the President to stop parading criminals, rebels, and other suspects on TV and on the front pages of our newspapers in her hunger to publicize her personal "leadership" in the battle against criminality and violence. Inevitably, in a reckless rush to score propaganda points, she has erred grievously. Remember the hoary admonition against tearing a pillow apart and throwing its feathers to the winds? The moral of the tale was that, try as hard as one might, nobody could recover all the feathers and stuff them back into the pillow again. The same is true of poor Ramirez’s good name, and, more than that, her peace of mind. What was inflicted on this innocent lady was surely a shattering experience.
As for GMA: Kindly cease and desist. She should have learned from the stupid episode in which she had impulsively announced in Mindanao that a kidnap gang leader was surrendering that very day and was practically in government hands. She was na-koryente when the opposite turned out to be true.
Incidentally, who was the guy who gave her the bum steer that time? Does this blundering fellow’s name not ring a bell?
The former PNP general hemmed and hawed, clumsily attempting to backpedal and "explain" the confusion. Wycoco should resign. As a G-man, he’s a clown who can’t even tell the difference between the "whistle-blower" who exposed the scam and the persons who stole all that money. By his stupidity he shamed an innocent lady. What he did is inexcusable.
The photographs show the accusatory expression on Wycks’ face when he pointed at Ramirez!
How can we, the people, feel safe if our lives and our families are under the "protection" of such cross-eyed lawmen? One fine day, a possé of NBI agents might just swoop down on our homes or offices and start shooting up the place – only to discover much later that they had gotten the wrong address. And, like the police who can "fictionize" their police records or "after action" reports, the NBI can tidy up their blunders by somehow framing the victims of their folly. Or literally burying their mistakes.
Wasn’t the NBI the agency which recently "lost" a large cache of shabu and dangerous drugs supposed to have been securely deposited in its "evidence" locker? Sus. One now begins to wonder about some of the urong-sulong NBI "findings" in the Nida Blanca murder case. Our agents may be on the right track in that heartbreaking tragedy, but now they have to demonstrate that they’re doubly sure.
It simply doesn’t make sense. The truth is that there’s never been anything to talk about. Joma, ex-Father Luis Jalandoni, and all those communists have been insisting that the government virtually surrender to them, not the other way around. They maintain that the territory they "hold" under the gun belongs to them, and shouldn’t be trespassed on by the government. What kind of baloney is that? Where a nation’s sovereign territory is involved, its extent is non-negotiable; otherwise, the writ of the Republic will be broken up. Can you imagine Great Britain ceding Wales to rebels? Or Spain, in the wake of those bomb attacks, the Basque country to ETA?
Or Germany surrendering Frankfurt, or Stuttgart, or even Dresden? Or the Belgians turning over Flanders, or the Flemish-speaking city of Antwerp, to Holland, just because the Flemish tongue and Dutch are linguistically identical – or almost? Or Indonesia agreeing to an independent Aceh?
All those "peace talks", whether with Reds or Islamic fundamentalists, are ridiculous. Moreover, each truce or ceasefire merely gives insurgents time to recruit, retrain, rearm and consolidate their control of substantial swathes of territory. Jaw-jaw is what defeats us. And we’re such a talkative nation, at that.
GMA’s directive to Justice Secretary Nani Perez to charge Tabaco (Albay) RTC Judge Arnulfo Cabredo, Olongapo City RTC Judge Eliodoro Ubiadas, and Pasig City Judge Rodrigo Lorenzo is well-taken. When Judge Cabredo issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) stopping the Bureau of Customs from seizing a "suspected" cargo of smuggled rice worth millions of pesos and Judge Ubiadas also granted a TRO that stymied government agents’ moves to nab drug smugglers in what might have been the biggest drug haul of the year, the "law" was distorted to assist the criminals in getting away.
For his part, Pasig RTC Judge Lorenzo issued a strange order permitting five suspected Chinese drug traffickers to post bail, then, even more strangely, inhibited himself from hearing the case after issuing that order.
By all means, DOJ Secretary Perez must muster all the resources of the Justice Department to go after those magistrates. This is no intrusion into the High Court’s domain. The investigation, after all, will be conducted by the Office of the Court Administrator, or by the Supreme Court itself, and the High Tribunal will ultimately mete out the corresponding penalties, should the evidence so warrant. My plea, and surely it’s shared by most other people, is that the Court act with dispatch.
Chavez, once more a prominent law practitioner, points out that "a considerable number of judges and prosecutors decide cases for considerations other than on the merits". Gee whiz. While I heartily agree with Frank, I wish our lawyers would stop mincing their words when they bemoan the antics of our by-now-legendary "hoodlums in robes".
What’s of note is that Chavez has just written several law firms asking them to join a practical undertaking he and some dedicated lawyers recently launched, called "Operation Clean Hands". The group is determined to pursue a "cleansing (of) the judiciary and the prosecutorial arm of the government" by exposing and prosecuting corrupt judges and prosecutors. (By the way, "prosecutors" used to be called "fiscals" until the latter became a bad word, since people were calling those officers of the court, "fix-cals".) This is not to say that many are fixers. There are a vast majority of them who’ve worked their careers through in an industrious, probative and honest manner.
However, we get the kind of judges and prosecutors that we deserve. Lawyers may gripe, but they’ve been too timorous to accuse and file charges against corrupt judges. By their apathy, indiffference – and cowardice, they’ve contributed to our current Injustice System. Let’s hope "Operation Clean Hands" really, this time, washes clean.