Chopper generals obviously covering up for someone

The Philippines must be the only democratic country in the world whose Supreme Court has rejected a Truth Commission.

* * *

Commonsense shows that the South Luzon Skyway is not faulty. It’s the driver of the bus that shot over the side railings and fell into the highway below who was. Tens of thousands of vehicles zip through the elevated road everyday; none falls off it. Whereas, this week, the bus driver recklessly over-sped during the rains, killing himself and two passengers. It would be a waste of time to inspect the Skyway design and construction. What needs to be done is make the bus operator pay for the burials, the damage to the pavement, and the fine for slapdash driver hiring.

* * *

The Ombudsman needs able investigators and prosecutors to win graft suits, Speaker Sonny Belmonte says. He knows whereof he speaks. In 2000 in the first-ever presidential impeachment, private attorneys helped him, as House Minority Leader, put up a credible case. Among the volunteers were senior and junior partners of the Carpio Villaraza Cruz law firm, the Sanidad brothers Pablo and Arno, and law dean Amado Valdez.

One, Simeon Marcelo of The CVC Firm, eventually became Ombudsman; another, retired judge Dennis Villa-Ignacio, Chief Special Prosecutor. Under them the Office of the Ombudsman’s complement grew. Congress granted budget additions, and US agencies offered training in 2003-2005. Accountants and computer forensics men were hired as investigators, and lawyers as prosecutors. Salaries were raised.

That was six years ago. Today the Ombudsman, under newly appointed Conchita Carpio Morales, needs another boost. Fortunately there’s Sen. Francis Pangilinan’s bill authorizing the chief graft-buster to designate trustworthy private lawyers as prosecutors. This would be particularly helpful to match the wiliest counsels that plunderers can afford to hire.

But that’s only for prosecution. Perhaps Pangilinan can expand the bill to include the seconding of other specialists — information technologists, bankers, light and heavy machinists, doctors and dentists, media men, realtors, engineers, architects, etc. — to beef up investigation.

* * *

It was obvious what the dozen police generals were up to in yesterday’s Senate hearing. They were covering up for the mastermind in their 2009 purchase of two old helicopters falsely passed off as brand new. And they did it so crudely. That’s why Senators Teofisto Guingona and Panfilo Lacson, the inquiry chairman and instigator, visibly were irked. So were Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada, Sergio Osmeña III, and Franklin Drilon, experts in aircraft, government procurement, and legal processes.

To conceal their master puppeteer, the marionette generals took the fall. On national television they play-acted to be grossly spaced out — maybe they really are — in standard procedures. All basic rules were ignored in their bidding, negotiation, inspection, test flight, acceptance, certification, and P105-million overpayment of the choppers.

At one point, when a general for inspection-acceptance admitted to being “unqualified”, Enrile suggested a better term, “incompetent”. Lacson, a former Philippine National Police chief, egged the generals in vain to talk, lest they be demoted and their retirement jeopardized. (He had leaked to reporters the other week that the old helicopters were, since 2004, owned by former First Gentleman Mike Arroyo. Murmurs in the small civil aviation industry are that the 2009 selling price of the used units was even higher than brand new.) Noting that the generals altered and disregarded the procurement specifications sans legal authority, Drilon warned that they could be charged with fraud. Guingona said that with the combination of illegal acts and the amount, the indictment could be for non-bailable plunder.

Lacson believes that Arroyo had forced the switcheroo on the generals. Given the influential owner of the aircraft, he doesn’t think any of them took kickbacks for the scam. But with their willingness to take the rap, they do deserve demotion and plunder prosecution. Do they not know that their Commander-in-Chief Noynoy Aquino is so interested to get to the bottom of the chopper mess, that he mentioned it in his State of the Nation Monday?

So unlike the generals, one colonel opted to tell what he knows. Claudio Gaspar Jr. said he was familiar with the two used Robinson Raven-I civilian units. Seconded to the Presidential Security Group from 2004 to 2010, he had flown “the private choppers” for members of the Arroyo First Family. His most frequent passengers were Rep. Mikey Arroyo (69 times, from flight logs) and First Gentleman Mike (16 times). He would drop them off at Malacañang Area-3, for presidential flights, then hangar the aircraft at the LionAir compound in Pasay City.

Camp Crame PNP headquarters sources say Gaspar was the favorite of five police pilots assigned to five private Robinson choppers. He was working for early retirement last month when Lacson blew the lid off the fallacious purchase. The generals clammed up all the more after Gaspar’s revelations. They and the ringleader might work on him before the next hearings. But if he sticks to the truth he’ll never go wrong.

* * *

A concert by Fides Cuyugan Asensio will showcase excerpts from her original musicale libretto. Applause: A Musical Celebration is Professor Fides’ thanksgiving to friends, fans, and particularly the composers who worked with her: Dr. Lucrecia Kasilag, Rey Paguio, Ryan Cayabyab, Raymond Roldan, and Francisco Feliciano. Showtime: Aug. 4, 3 p.m., and August 5, 7 p.m., at Abelardo Hall, UP College of Music, Diliman, Quezon City. For ticket reservation: [email protected] (02) 41215675, 9296963.

* * *

Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ, (882-AM).

E-mail: [email protected]