Thank God for the gift of Haydee Yorac!

You want to know what's wrong with this country? We have people or organizations that glorify wanted men. The best example is the so-called "Be Not Afraid Movement" who says, "Ninoy is a patriot and is one with the Filipino people in seeking the truth." Unfortunately, the Ninoy they are referring to is former Deputy Police Director of the Philippine National Police (PNP) Michael Ray Aquino who has been arrested in Queens, New York City for espionage, not our national hero the late Sen. Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino. Atty. Ramon Pedrosa chair of the BNA says that Aquino is a leader of the BNA in the USA and if we leave them to their own devices they just might turn this Aquino into another martyr. But is he really a patriot or a spy?

If truly the BNA group is not afraid to seek the truth, why then did Michael Ray Aquino skip town when the authorities wanted him to shed light on the killing of publicist Salvador "Bubby" Dacer and his driver Corbito? Listening to the interviews by Sen. Panfilo "Ping" Lacson or the family of Aquino, they are now trying to link the arrest of Aquino as perpetrated by the Arroyo administration, that all this is politics.

Wow! I didn't realize that Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo (GMA) was so powerful, she could get the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to apprehend Aquino as if all this was a political game. Well, it is not a game and America is quite serious in apprehending people from other nations trying to pry into their affairs. The latest news on this was the arrest of an Israeli national in US soil for spying for his country. In the case of Aquino, he obviously wasn't spying for the Philippines, but for the opposition!

The truth of the matter is, Michael Ray Aquino and his co-conspirator Leandro Aragoncillo obviously forgot that they were already in American soil and that Americans do not take espionage lightly. Here, our own President was wiretapped and nobody made a howl that the security of our President was breached; rather, they wanted only the truth from one side regardless whether it would be a grave risk to our national security.

While the Department of Justice is preparing themselves for the date the FBI would reveal the names of the Philippine government officials (there is a former high level public official, a present high-level public official and a 2nd high level public official) who were given sensitive information by Aquino and Aragoncillo, perhaps they ought to study the possibility of arresting Sen. Lacson for obstruction of justice because of his public revelation that he was in constant contact with Aquino through the Internet and it is not farfetched to say that they talked regularly on the phone. This country is supposed to have laws against aiding and abetting suspected criminals running from the law. Is Ping one of the "present high-level public official" as stated in the FBI report? I would like to believe he is!

More of this story would explode because it is in the hands of American investigators who cannot be swayed by any political groups. I would like to believe that something bigger is in the offing.

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Filipinos mourn the death of one of the most respected women in the Philippines, Ms. Haydee Yorac who succumbed to cancer. The nation has lost someone who served her country as best as she thought she could. In an interview with Men's Zone magazine a few months back, Yorac admitted that her greatest accomplishment as chairperson of the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) was when she was able to recover the US$ 683 million in Swiss deposits that were traced to the Marcos bank accounts and the other was to establish ownership of the Coco Levy funds as belonging to the Philippine government.

This is Yorac's best contribution to our nation. Many Filipinos believed that the Marcoses plundered our nation's coffers but because the late Pres. Ferdinand E. Marcos was never prosecuted, much less indicted in our courts, the Marcoses always claimed that he was never convicted of any crime. Hence, they insist that he should be given a hero's burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. Well, it is time for the Marcoses to explain how they had so many million of dollars stashed in Swiss accounts that Ms. Yorac was able to recover in favor of the Philippine government.

I'm sure it would be difficult for any of the surviving Marcoses to explain why they had so much money and why they hid it in Swiss banks. If we gauge the salary of Pres. Marcos, surely he wouldn't have amassed so much wealth. They can always claim that all that money came from the fabled Yamashita treasure. But that's another yarn. Thank God for the gift of Haydee Yorac. May I request you to pray for the repose of her soul.

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For email responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila's columns can also be accessed through www.thefreeman.com