Last week our country experienced two major disasters: a natural disaster that somehow made us proud to be a Filipino; and a man-made disaster that brought out another Filipino trait causing shame and embarrassment.
The natural disaster that unfortunately hit our country, internationally known as Super typhoon Haiyan, was considered as the world’s strongest tropical cyclone to hit land. Locally code named as Super Typhoon “Yolandaâ€, she made a landfall and pummeled the Visayas last Friday causing so much death and destruction that brought out once more the Filipinos’ admirable trait of resiliency, strong faith and enduring hope. Somehow this disaster made us proud once again to be a Filipino as people all over the world expressed their admiration at our “indomitable human spirit at its finestâ€. The CNN news indeed described Filipinos as a “bunch of survivors†who can “shake off the dirt from their clothes and go about their business…and SMILE†despite the disasters coming their way.
More admirable yet is our love and care for each other in the midst of these disasters as the rich and poor, mighty and lowly join hands and pool their resources together to give aid and comfort to our stricken countrymen. And more admirable here is the greater love and concern we show when our countrymen experience greater disaster like what is happening when the entire nation come to the aid of the victims sharing their food, clothing and other goods, and praying for them.
The man-made disaster also hitting our country last week occurred in our Senate Session Hall during the investigation in aid of legislation conducted by the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee on the P10 billion pork barrel scam recently unearthed. This disaster brought out the kind of dirty politics and bad governance we have and the obnoxious Filipino traits of greed and selfishness bringing shame and embarrassment to our people. Calling the alleged brains of the scam, Janet Lim Napoles (JLN) when she is already under preliminary investigation by the Ombudsman for the crime of plunder is really disaster.
Our Senators should have known that she will never supply them with “facts†which would only confirm and establish her guilt. Hence her much anticipated appearance before the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee just turned out to be another worthless but expensive undertaking. It is another waste of time and taxpayers money that only gave our Senators another opportunity to grandstand and display their supposed ability and requisite stuff as legislators in conducting investigation in “aid of legislationâ€.
In the performance of this function our Senators are supposed to summon resource persons who will supply them with the necessary information regarding the pork barrel system and whether or not it should be abolished. But even without calling JLN, there are already enough factual bases for them to craft a law scrapping this system which is undoubtedly the biggest source of corruption in our government. The findings of the Department of Justice (DOJ and its investigating agency, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) on the P10 billion scam are already enough to show the need of junking this system.
Thus, as expected, JLN’s testimony before the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee did not contribute at all to the Senate’s professed motive of coming up with the necessary legislation about the pork barrel system. Summoning JLN is clearly just another manifestation of the incessant politics plaguing our country where those in and out of power are trying to rouse adverse public opinion on each other.
In fact, Senate President Drilon’s initial opposition to the idea of calling JLN to testify should have been followed by the Committee. Drilon’s mistake here is that he still used the advice of the Ombudsman as reason for his opposition. People thought that Drilon was just trying to prevent JLN from revealing the real score that will implicate the ruling administration reaching as high up as the Presidency. So because of the growing public opinion against his stance in this regard, he had to change his mind and allowed the Committee to summon JLN after apparently being assured that she will simply make bare denials and invoke her right against self incrimination as repeatedly aired by her counsel prior to the hearing.
In this connection, it is already well established that denial is an inherently weak defense which cannot prevail over the positive and credible testimonies of witnesses (People vs. Baluya 648 SCRA 708); that denial, if not substantiated by clear and convincing evidence, is negative and self serving evidence undeserving of weight in law (People vs. Ocden, 650 SCRA 124). It has a far less evidentiary value than the testimony of credible witnesses who testify on affirmative matters (People vs. Montaner, 656 SCRA, 605) and cannot prevail over the affirmative testimonies of truthful witnesses (Supreme Court vs. Delgado, 658 SCRA 401). So JLN’s testimony is really useless.
Undoubtedly, in this investigation, JLN is more of a hostile witness than a resource person. So if our Senators intended to squeeze facts out of her, they should have cross examined her thoroughly instead of simply asking her to affirm or deny the truth of the whistle blowers’ testimonies.
American Jurisprudence (Am Jur) Cyclopedia of Trial Practice tells us that cross examination to be successful and effective must be thoroughly prepared. The cross examiner must have complete knowledge of the facts and a definite, but flexible, plan and objective, carefully arranging the order of interrogation so as to best accomplish the desired result. The most important questions for the cross examination of the witnesses on major points should be written out in a language familiar to the witness and must be so phrased as to require the witness to give the answer called for, such that he will appear to be dishonest or evasive if he refuses to do so.
Obviously our Senators did not have such preparation. Hence, this man-made disaster.
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