Christmas croakings

The death of former undersecretary Maria Catalina Cabral came as a surprise.

An apparent jump from the steep roads of Kennon, into a ravine many meters deep. A driver who was instructed to leave the mistress alone while the mistress ruminated on life’s many twists and turns. A frantic search, and the recovery of a body.

It became instant fodder for chat groups and online posts, netizens expressing shock, in the beginning, and as more details emerged, expressing doubt, opinions, conclusions and, naturally, accusations.

The overriding question became, “Is she really dead”?

With Senator Francis Pangilinan and Congresswoman Leila de Lima leading the pack, the authorities are being urged to do the practical, and ensure that the body which has been presented to the world as that of Cabral, is indeed Cabral’s. Which should be a simple thing, really, except that the immediate family of Cabral is refusing an autopsy.

Oh dear. Here come the conspiracy theories.

One lawyer-commentator friend inquires - what were the NBI or the PNP doing before this apparent suicide? Were they not monitoring her whereabouts, being a person of interest in the multiple investigations on corruption that has embroiled this nation for many months? If she had been fingered by a sitting senator as the mover behind the scenes, why was no one tracking her and making sure she doesn’t flee the country, like many other persons of interest?

Another friend chimes in - what were they doing when the body was discovered? What kind of forensic evidence was recovered? Why did the police release her mobile phone immediately to the family? All sorts of evidence might have been recovered there (not just about her untimely demise, but her potential participation in the ransacking of our national treasury).

My naturally-suspicious questions thus are, with all this heat from the peanut gallery, what will the cops do? Are they going to force an ID of the body? Are they going to establish the cause of death? Are they going to start a deeper investigation into the circumstances around her death? Will they start probing the members of the family and, poor guy, the driver Cardo Hernandez who accompanied her during her supposed last moments? Sympathy for Cardo expressed as someone entitled to the benefit of the doubt. For now.

Of course Mang Cardo has been questioned, and is apparently in police custody at the moment, but will his ready answers stand the test of scrutiny by suspicious folks? Will his phone records and photographs and message tie together a coherent narrative?

Because if not, the conspiracy theorists will have a big victory --and all the more we will start yapping at the crime syndicate that fueled the biggest heist of this nation. And if I were a small fry or even a middling fish, I would start to be very afraid, because that means the big sharks and crocs are out to eliminate witnesses. It’s time to take lessons in evasion, lying, hiding, and escaping (things they already excel at, anyway).

All they have to do is look at Senator Bato de la Rosa, who has been missing in action at the Senate. Accused of crimes against humanity (which he denies, of course), and rumored to be subject of an international warrant of arrest, the normally-feisty senator and tough cop is nowhere to be found. Not in the halls of the Senate, not in his residence, and not in his usual haunts. Perhaps, he feels hunted.

Well, that’s my Christmas wish for them. All of the conspirators, accomplices, and knowing beneficiaries of the plundered funds. I hope they feel hunted, and they don’t enjoy the Christmas season at all. I hope they’re having panic attacks and experiencing extreme stress. I hope they spend their waking hours thinking of a way around their problems. I hope they fear for their lives and their families and their stolen funds. I hope they don’t enjoy Christmas, now that they can’t splurge and shower their friends with expensive luxury gifts. Yes, be miserable please.

And now that I have vented all this negativity on the proper recipients, I can spend my Christmas in (relative) peace.