The administration whose head keeps vowing that his government will be clean was in the dock yesterday.
Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV revived his election campaign allegation that President Duterte maintained bank deposits through which a total of about P2.4 billion was funneled from 2006 to 2015. This time, Trillanes also implicated Du30’s children, his partner Honeylet Avanceña and ex-wife Elizabeth Zimmerman.
Palace officials dismissed the story as “grandstanding” and a rehash, and said a waiver has been signed, allowing banks to release the President’s banking transactions.
During the campaign, Duterte had branded the accusation as part of election black propaganda unleashed by his rivals, notably the then ruling Liberal Party. The issue is said to be among the reasons for his displeasure with the Anti-Money Laundering Council.
He also admitted receiving campaign contributions but nowhere approximating such a massive amount. But he raised eyebrows when he said at the start of his vicious war on drugs that he would use his leftover campaign funds to give a reward of P3 million for every high-value drug dealer killed by cops. Du30 counted about 100 such drug traffickers, meaning he had at least P300 million left over from his war chest.
Who donated the funds and were the contributions declared? The questions were asked at the time but it was too early to challenge the new (and hugely popular) administration, and the questions faded away unanswered.
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On another front yesterday, senators grilled the whole day retired police officer Wally Sombero, a key player in the scandal over the release of 600 out of 1,316 Chinese working illegally at the Fontana resort and casino.
Sombero, said to be casino owner Jack Lam’s middleman, testified that two Duterte appointees (and fellow Bedans) in the Bureau of Immigration had shaken down the gambling mogul, initially asking for about P100 million in exchange for the release of the casino workers.
Al Argosino and Michael Robles, who have quit as immigration associate commissioners and filed countercharges of bribery against their accusers, repeated their story that they took P30 million in cash from Lam as part of an entrapment operation.
Like most people following the case, senators were incredulous. Argosino and Robles took the money to their homes instead of reporting the “bribe” to their superior and having bureau personnel take custody of the dirty money. They held on to the money as the scandal erupted and CCTV footage emerged showing them with the bags of cash.
The only question now is how high up culpability goes. Sen. Leila de Lima tried but failed yesterday to link her tormentor, Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre Jr., to the extortion. Aguirre, a fraternity brother of Argosino and Robles in Lex Talionis, will get his eye for an eye when (not if) De Lima is arrested and held without bail on drug charges.
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On a third front, Malacañang officials were busy yesterday pitching the innocence of a woman who has become the embodiment of large-scale theft of people’s money.
It doesn’t matter if the solicitor general has taken up the cudgels for Janet Lim Napoles not in the pork barrel scam but in the serious illegal detention of her second cousin Benhur Luy, for which she has started serving a life term. The public impression is that the Duterte administration is defending the pork barrel queen and wants her freed.
And for what? Government lawyers said Napoles could pin down “bigger personalities,” and it looks like they’re referring not just to the usual suspect, De Lima.
The Court of Appeals clarified yesterday that it did not ask for an “opinion” from the solicitor general about Napoles’ conviction for illegal detention.
Solicitor General Jose Calida explained the other day, after the special report of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism came out, that a review of the case conducted by his office showed that Luy was not really held against his will and was free to leave Napoles’ custody.
Justice is blind and people must be open to the possibility that Calida and his team might be telling the truth. If their claim turns out to be correct, it will erode the credibility of Luy as a whistle-blower in the pork barrel scam.
But even if Luy’s testimony is weakened, government prosecutors still have the “truckloads” of documents presented with fanfare by officials of the Commission on Audit at the height of the pork barrel scandal. COA officials said they had conducted their own investigation and documented the misuse of the pork barrel by nearly 200 congressmen and senators, many of them reelected to the current Congress.
People are still waiting for indictments to be brought against those 200. Under daang matuwid, leaders of the opposition were mainly the ones targeted for arrest and detention without bail.
If the Duterte administration wants to tap Napoles as a state witness while at the same time insisting that it is serious in its war on corruption, it must show that it will continue to pursue accountability and punishment in the pork barrel scam, against political allies and opponents alike.
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The Jack Lam scandal should illustrate to Du30 how tricky it can be for a president of this country to make good on one’s commitment against corruption.
The regulatory framework is malleable. Justice is for sale and so excruciatingly slow it’s an injustice.
Leading by example is not enough. Even during the terms of Corazon Aquino and her son Noynoy, crooks in government showed that they didn’t give a whit about clean leadership by example.
The typical attitude, which reportedly prevails in agencies such as the Bureau of Customs whenever a new team comes along, is that reform-minded officials will be there only for a short period while the corrupt personnel will be there like forever.
If Du30 is serious in his war on graft, he must strengthen institutions and implement structural reforms. As much as possible, dirty political paws must be kept off the system of appointments and promotions.
Opportunities for corruption must be plugged. Procurement must be simplified and red tape drastically cut.
Punishment is important: the government must leave no doubt that the corrupt, no matter how high in rank, will be caught and punished.
Du30 has an edge over his predecessors in trying to clean up government: he enjoys the fear factor. When he warns that he’s prepared to kill, it’s highly likely that it’s not just hyperbole. What will kill his campaign is the failure to sanction his own people who are implicated in graft.