Disappointing is an understatement

The Sandiganbayan has penned its decision, approving the plea bargaining deal between the government, or more accurately the Office of the former Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez and Carlos Garcia, the former AFP comptroller who has plundered hundreds of millions of pesos from the government. After severe public outcry, Senate hearings and all that, the Sandiganbayan has still seen it fit to approve the disadvantageous deal, citing the “weak” evidence against Garcia. Garcia for his part pleads guilty to the lesser offense of direct bribery and facilitating money laundering, and agreed to transfer P135.433 million pesos in favor of the government. With eyebrows raised to the roof, how did he legally get P135.433 million to return in the first place?

Plunder is the crime involving at least fifty million pesos. It has been asked at the Senate how on earth is Garcia able to return P135.433 million to the government on a military man’s salary? Granting he was a general – I really do not want to address him as such as he does not deserve it in any capacity – he could not have made that much money in two hundred fifty years! He could make that amount in two hundred eighty-one years though. Sarcasm aside, how the Sandiganbayan accepts that he has the P135.433 million to return to the government is beyond me. And yet, there are those who undergo a lifestyle check on the mere basis of the cars that they drive or where their children go to school!

Indeed, many are saying that this development still has the former Ombudsman’s hands all over it. And I believe it. The accusations leveled at Merceditas Gutierrez had her impeachment pushed through included the Garcia plea bargaining deal. It was done in secret, it was done without informing the most basic of parties, the Filipino people. What this plea bargaining deal has done is to let would-be plunderers know that they could steal now and return half of it later, if caught that is. And if the same prosecutors who handled the Garcia case are still around. Wink, wink.

So what happens now? Garcia gets to walk free, go to the US and join his criminal and deviant family. To say that the developments are a disappointment is an understatement! If there are any more options the Aquino administration has up its sleeve to fully dispense justice against Garcia and his ilk, they should get to it right now. Otherwise, all is truly lost. All.