We are no longer a nation of laws, but of men

Now it can be told that in this country, public servants are above the law! Therefore you can very well say that we are a nation of men and not of laws. This is the conclusion I get after reading those reports from the Senate Blue (or yellow) Ribbon Committee on the case of Vice-President Jejomar Binay who failed to appear before this investigative body in last Thursday's Senate hearing. As we all know, Binay was here in Cebu already having an early campaign believing very strongly that the smear campaign against him has not made a dent in his presidential ambitions.

As I learned from Senate Blue Ribbon Committee Chairman Teofisto Guingona III, he would no longer invite Binay to another hearing after Binay snubbed his committee. If it was a lesser mortal who snubbed the Senate, you can bet your life that the next move by the Senate Committee would be to send Binay a subpoena, thus forcing him to appear otherwise he risks being sent to jail for contempt. In my book, it is a sad day for democracy and our senators are not willing to go to that extreme extent as far as the vice president is concerned.

On the other hand, I fully agree with many pundits that the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee investigations are not really done "in aid" of legislation, but rather they did it "in aid" for re-election. As I have already said many times over, it is high time that the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee send a resolution to the Office of the Ombudsman to have all the allegations that they unraveled during the media circus in the Senate as their evidence of crimes committed by the vice president.

Notably among these alleged corrupt deals is the Makati parking building, the multicabs that Makati purchased and yes that questionable 60-hectare property in Rosario, Batangas and the latest is the Science High School building. I certainly hope that the Office of the Ombudsman should also focus on potential corruption in the Commission on Audit assigned in Makati and I am sure that this is happening elsewhere around the nation. Remember the Ampatuan's how they got so rich?

In my book, no corrupt deal in the local government can prosper if the COA assigns an incorruptible officer to that local government office. But with corruption in the government becoming the norm rather than the exception, one must look at what the COA is doing and why they could not prevent the corruption from happening. They must have been in cahoots with corrupt local government officials.

So as I have pointed out in so many previous columns, now the ball is with the Office of the Ombudsman, whom I submit maybe saddled with a heavy work load. But if the Ombudsman is true to her calling, they should have already conducted her own preliminary investigation on the case of Binay, who is still pinning his hope that he could be president after the 2016 presidential elections courtesy of the masang Filipino who believes that all government officials are corrupt, which is why the surveys (at least in Metro Manila) show that Binay is still a leading candidate for president in the 2016 presidential elections.

We do not have to go far to find out the way the people of Manila votes. Just look at who is the Mayor of Manila today, isn't it ousted President Joseph "Erap" Estrada? Of course to the intelligentsia, voting Erap as mayor of Manila is an abomination. But you are not thinking the way the masa thinks and regardless of what he has done to the country by amassing a questionable fortune, Erap is now mayor of Manila.

It is for this very reason why we created the National Transformation Council so we could effect those needed political reforms. Without those political reforms, there is a great possibility that the majority of the Filipino people would elect Binay into the presidency. So then what happens to the many corruption cases that would be filed against him before the elections? Worse of all, we have a very strong but ugly patronage system which many crooked officials use to the hilt when they are in power, thus thwarting any further investigations on corruption cases against them.

We do not have to look far. The case of the Hacienda Luisita comes to mind right away, where the Philippine government filed a case against the late Senator Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr. which ended up in an impasse when his wife Tita Cory Aquino became president. It was only during the time of Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona that justice was finally given to the farmers of Hacienda Luisita which incurred the ire of current Pres. PNoy Aquino who in a sheer act of revenge had Corona removed by the Senate, despite that they also have committed impeachable crimes against the Filipino people when they got monies from DAP for removing Corona.  [email protected]